March 23, 2014

Cabot Taekwon-Do conducted an all day umpire training course for students interested in participating as officials in competitions.  As this is a also a requirement for Black Belts competing in the upcoming CanAms in Oakville it was an opportune time to get our students ready for this challenge.  The morning consisted of learning the correct signals to perform the duties of a center referee for sparring.  Students were asked to work in groups and practice stopping the match to give warnings and fouls as appropriate.  Then different aspects of a typical match were added in from first meeting your competitors through to bowing them out after a winner was declared.  This was practiced as a group and then individually until the break.  In the afternoon volunteer students arrived to spar and perform patterns for the course participants to officiate over.  This continued for several hours and upon completion the participants were called on individually to perform a specific ruling.