Mr Norman Ng is one of the pioneers of Taekwon-Do in New Zealand.
He started his club in Palmerston North in 1970, and after retiring as an instructor served two terms as the President of ITFNZ.
This is his story. Interviewed on 20 June 2023 aged 85.
Watch in the TKDCoaching App
Mr Norman Ng is one of the pioneers of Taekwon-Do in New Zealand.
He started his club in Palmerston North in 1970, and after retiring as an instructor served two terms as the President of ITFNZ.
This is his story. Interviewed on 20 June 2023 aged 85.
Watch in the TKDCoaching App
DON’T FORGET TO WATCH No. 10 – Paul McPhail performs Juche forwards and backwards
For my 5th degree black belt grading in 1993 I thought it would be a cool idea to perform Juche Tul forwards then backwards for General Choi.
The plan failed miserably as I started the backwards part… I hadn’t even considered the possibility that General Choi would take offence to it. He turned his head and refused to watch. I figured… well… I may as well carry on now and struggled through to the end.
I passed the grading so I guess the General had forgiven me by the day the results were announced.
Here is the footage of the pattern at the grading.
This video technology enables students to compare themselves to experts side by side so that they can see how to improve in visual detail.
The full video gives this kind of analysis so you can see the differences in technique and timing. Even if you are not Riana, you can still get tremendous benefit by comparing someone to an extremely skilled athlete at the same time.
Massey University 1978 This is a great example of how training was in the 70s: fast and hard. You will see the Massey club in Palmerston North in an outdoor training session lead by Mr Michael Lowe, followed by one step sparring.
This was the second ITFNZ Development Camp – the original camp was in 1999. These camps are seen by many as the start of New Zealand’s rise in the World rankings in terms of competition and general standard.
The idea was to hand pick the best students we had from around the country and send them to a very special camp. We got our best instructors to teach them and push them over a series of intense training sessions. Many of the participants went on to be competitors on the world stage, but more importantly word spread, and it was the start of much more specialised training ideas in New Zealand.
Enjoy this classic footage of the ITFNZ Development Camp 5-7 March 2004. Original Website Page Instructors for the camp were: Mr Paul McPhail (6th dan, ITFNZ Technical Director) Mr Rimmer (6th dan, Senior Examiner) Mr Steve Pellow (5th dan – self defence guru) Mr Graham Patterson (World Pattern Champion & Grand Champion) Mr Andrew Niven (World Champs and Junior World Champs Coach) Mr Mark Banicevich (4th dan, author of English-Korean dictionary) Mr Carl van Roon (World Champion in Special Techniques) Mr Kane Raukura (Dragons Spirit Instructor Extraordinaire)
Kiwisport is a program from Sport New Zealand aiming to promote sport for school-aged children. Master McPhail, acting as the Kiwisport Coordinator, devised a programme aimed at introducing Taekwon-Do to kids in a fun way. This includes the active sport side, as well as the martial arts discipline and culture. A number of schools initially took up the programme and now the results are beyond expectations. Over a thousand kids are now taking part each year, it has spread to secondary schools, and a number of our instructors are able to be instructors full time because of it. Lianna McCartney, Instructor at Zeal Taekwon-Do Otahuhu, has been at one of the schools and kindly told us how things were going:
The classes run for 45 minutes, giving a brief introduction to a lot of different aspects of Taekwon-Do. They have been learning some of the Korean terminology, and core values (or “Tenets”) of Taekwon-Do
From there they work on technical skills, self-defence, and punching and kicking pads.
As you can see from the Redoubt School newsletter, the kids are really enjoying the classes and eagerly await each lesson.
There has been a lot of interest from students and teachers who have been given a taste of Taekwon-Do, and want to find out more. For them, there are lots of local clubs to visit, try an introductory lesson, and join up. For International Taekwon-Do and Sport New Zealand, this has been the perfect launch to a fun, interesting school sports programme.
