On Saturday, 24th September 2016 the Kuk Sool Won schools of Lowestoft and Halesworth gathered at Waterlane Leisure Centre in order to celebrate the schools’ thirtieth anniversaries and all that the schools have achieved during this period of establishment, from hosting the first ever UK tournament and being home to many instructors whom have moved overseas and founded schools there, to winning the WKSA European championships many years consecutively and leading numerous black belts to becoming grand champions on both a national and international scale.

The event welcomed students from many schools additional to those who belong to the hosting schools, with guests from visiting schools also taking part in our demonstrations. As well as the participants we were joined by over two hundred guests who, in great numbers, have reported back to us with greatly positive feedback on what they saw from us. Not only did our guests in the audience enjoy the show but so did the mayor of Lowestoft as well as the managing director of Sentinel Leisure Trust, both of whom were seated among a few others at our head table.

In addition to the event being in celebration of our thirtieth anniversary, the extravaganza was also dedicated to SBN Terry Twist from the Halesworth school who sadly past away a few weeks prior to the event.

The board breaking segment of the event was done in aid of two charities, with students collecting sponsorship before breaking their boards. Our charitable events are always a huge success with our grand total usually somewhere about the £1500 mark, however in this case we’re pleased to announce that our grand total has exceeded any of our previous ones by a mile at just over £4000 thanks to the bucket donations on the night combined with the sponsorship money raised by students for their board break! Thank you to everyone who contributed toward our grand total which is to be split between two great causes.

The main event consisted of demonstrations from everyone from each school, who performed in at least one section of the event each (with the exception of a few who unfortunately were not able to make it).

We began our event with demonstrations from the tiny dragons’ class who at first were adored by the audience at first, however opinions changed soon after the audience saw why we call them the tiny dragons! The tiny dragons demo consisted of a few basic kicking drills followed by them putting the black belts in their place with their self-defence techniques and board breaking!

The tiny dragons were followed by the low grade juniors and advanced juniors respectively in their own demos, with the low grade kids running through some basic drills and the advanced kids performing a sword routine which was put together by JDKJN Martin as well as their kicking and hand-strike application techniques on partners.

After this, the under black belt adults came on, demonstrating our foundation level form – Ki Cho Hyung – as well as our most basic self-defence techniques. Next up was the black belt demo which consisted of demonstrations of all kinds – from empty handed forms and techniques to advanced weapon demonstrations including staff, sword, spear, fan and cane.

Overall the event was a huge success, with the phrase “it’ll be alright on the night” being extremely relevant having seen the last minute preparations and refinement of demonstration from the night before compared to what actually happened on the mats on the evening of the demonstration. In the words of JKN Oakley, “when we all were practising I didn’t think the extravaganza would go down well but I have to say that all of you proved me wrong!”.

The actual demonstration was not only our first full run-through, but it was our first run through of many of the sections with everyone involved present. Some of the people in the advanced juniors’ demonstration which I was leading had never met me before and only had a vague idea of how the demo was going to go, so I’d like to congratulate those people as well as everyone else who took part on doing such a good job of not letting any of these facts evident at all.

Aside from a few minor hiccups which went by unnoticed by almost everyone in the room, the demo ran smoothly and in my opinion couldn’t have been any better! Everything looked very professional and this is down to both the hard work of everyone who took part in the demo as well as that of JDKJN Martin, JIKJN Alison and all of those in the extravaganza committee whose efforts cannot go unrecognised due to the night turning out a fantastic success from their hard work and commitment.

If you wish to see our photos from the event, please click here.