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Movement Relaxation

Movement Relaxation with World Champion Mira Sjövall

Miss Mira Sjövall is a ITF Taekwon-Do World Champion in patterns. Her powerful yet relaxed style is something to behold, and obviously in favour with the judges.

Mira is the student of Master Thierry Meyour, 7th dan from Finland. Master Meyour has always made good use of sport science and other disciplines to assist in his Taekwon-Do coaching and instructing,  with a particular interest in thinking “outside the box”. This led him to experimenting with Alexander technique and other methods used by dancers and other athletes.

Master Meyour and his team of enthusiastic instructors and practitioners are always pushing the boundary of knowledge, and Mira is a good example of some of the amazing results they have achieved. Of course much of it is Mira’s hard work herself – as with any world champion, it is the hours and hours of repetition we don’t get to see that makes the difference.

This video was filmed as a part of the ITF  Patterns Unleashed series of on-line courses. We are proud to be partnering with ITF Patterns Unleashed and have some new projects planned for the near future.

Mira Sjövall – Finland

  • World Champion 2019 (2nd dan patterns)
  • European Champion 2019 (2nd dan patterns)
  • European Champion 2018 (1st dan patterns)
  • World Champion 2017 (1st dan patterns)
  • European Cup gold 2018 (2nd dan patterns)
  • Double European Champion 2016 (1st dan patterns and sparring)

We apologise for the quality of the video, as this was recorded from an on-line Zoom seminar. We are working on improving the quality in the future.
Interview with World Champion Mira Sjövall

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Movement Relaxation Interview

Miss Mira Sjövall is a ITF Taekwon-Do World Champion in patterns. Her powerful yet relaxed style is something to behold, and obviously in favour with the judges.

Mira is the student of Master Thierry Meyour, 7th dan from Finland. Master Meyour has always made good use of sport science and other disciplines to assist in his Taekwon-Do coaching and instructing,  with a particular interest in thinking “outside the box”. This led him to experimenting with Alexander technique and other methods used by dancers and other athletes.

TKD September 4, 2021
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Acceleration Power in Patterns

Master Thierry Meyour, 7th dan from Finland works with Miss Mira Sjövall in this interesting video on acceleration power for patterns.

Master Meyour has always made good use of sport science and other disciplines to assist in his Taekwon-Do coaching and instructing,  with a particular interest in thinking “outside the box”. This led him to experimenting with Alexander technique and other methods used by dancers and other athletes.

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Relaxation : the key to power and performance

Spend any amount of time in a dojang  and you will see some guy (and it is more often than not a guy) whose moves look, well, clunky. They have a tense stiffness about them, a forced attempt to generate power. Trust me I know I was that guy (and still am on occasions).

Instructors faced with the clunky guy almost invariably say “try to relax”. Of course as soon as anyone tells you to relax you are likely to find yourself completely unable to do so, in fact, you are likely to actually stiffen up more. Akin to the experience of being told not to think of a pink elephant, the first thing that pops into your mind is a pink elephant.

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Road to Double Gold

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This session was even more interesting, in that WT Master from France Lionel Villaret was invited to take the session. This is a perfect example of “cross-training” or “outside-the-box” thinking that Black Eagle TKD is well known for.

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Snippets of amazing old footage

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.

TKD December 31, 2015
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