ESTEVAN - The Estevan Taekwon-do Association has a hopeful season ahead of them. After a missing most of a year and half due to the pandemic, the club started training again on Sept. 13.
“We were pretty excited to get back to training again, because we’ve been away from taekwon-do for a year and a half,” said Wayne Brown, the head instructor at the club. “As numbers went down earlier this year, we were able to get back to training, but then numbers spiked, and then we had to close again for the safety of our students and our instructors.”
The Estevan club began in 1985, when a few taekwon-do instructors came from Regina. Brown has been a part of the club since 1986, and is nearing 35 years of training and teaching in the Estevan area.
“After so many years of training, it becomes a way of life, and you really miss it,” he said. “It has become a way of life to me, I cannot deny that. I can credit this training to a lot of success in my life. I’ve made many friends.”
Brown mentioned how enrolment and the number of students have declined over the pandemic.
“Our numbers are down from previous years, which is to be expected, because COVID really changed the way we play recreational activities. We have a number of new students, and a few returning students,” he said.
“Due to the whole stop-start routine, I think a few players quit and moved cities and other stuff. We’re hoping as soon as we can establish a routine, we’ll get back up to 60 or 70 students.”
He also mentioned that their enrolment is currently around 40 students.
Brown said that he is looking forward to the year of training and return to routine. Because of pandemic protocols and the physically close nature of the sport, Estevan taekwon-do could not hold their regular season with only masks and social distancing. Starting this year, they will be enforcing the vaccination protocols put in place by the Government of Saskatchewan.
Competitions and tournaments won’t be stopped this year, but they will be delayed.
“We usually hold our annual tournament here in Estevan in the first week of November. Because we’ve been away from it for a year and a half, we’re not tournament-ready yet, so we’re not going to hold the tournament.”
The home tournament isn’t the taekwon-do club’s last chance, however.
“We’ll hopefully hold a tournament in the new year, and we do have some senior black belt training scheduled in Saskatoon. We’re looking to host a black belt seminar in the early new year in Estevan as well.”
In addition to those opportunities, they also plan to host house tournaments and competitions, to keep the competitive aspect of the club, but Brown says that taekwon-do isn’t just about competitions, but more about self-defence.
“We teach in a traditional manner, and tournaments are a way to show where you are, and the sport aspect, but we teach traditional taekwon-do.”
