International Taekwon‑Do Federation

Throughout 2020, the Czech Taekwon‑Do Federation had to deal, like other countries, with many new crisis situations that were directly related to the new global disease COVID-19.

First, the federation was forced to postpone and later cancel the 35th European Taekwon‑Do ITF Championships, which were to take place in April in the Czech capital, Prague. Even the shift to August did not work out and there was nothing left but to officially cancel the championships and start working on the termination of this large project, which Czechia had been preparing for 2 years.

At the same time, solutions were sought on how to continue practicing Taekwon‑Do in Czechia, as the government regulations closed all possibilities of common practicing not only indoors, but also outdoors for many months.

Therefore, in April, a national project of online technical seminars and training sessions was initiated on the federation’s YouTube channel with the Czech masters, instructors and assistant instructors. Every Sunday from 18:00 there was an online session with a selected Czech conductor.

The first online session took place on April 26, 2020, led by Kamil Samal, 2nd Degree Assistant Instructor and the Head Coach of the Taekwon‑Do Dojang Karviná, and was attended by more than 250 practitioners from 23 Taekwon‑Do schools.

Subsequently, during the whole year, when it was not possible to train otherwise, another 11 online training sessions took place, in which 10 Czech assistant instructors, instructors and masters took the leading part. You can view all sessions at https://www.youtube.com/c/CzechTaekwonDoITF

The head instructor of Czech Taekwon‑Do ITF, Korean Grandmaster Prof. Hwang Ho Yong, personally conducted the 9th online seminar for Czech students. The effort culminated on 19th December 2020 with a large three-hour technical seminar for students from all over the world.

This 2020’s final online seminar was attended by more than 1,500 students from more than 40 countries. Apart from students from Czechia, students from Malaysia, Canada, England, Spain and South Africa had the largest representation.

Since there was a very large interest in the final online technical seminar, the Czech Taekwon‑Do Federation is now preparing, in cooperation with the ITF, an International Online Technical Seminar conducted by Grandmaster Hwang Ho Yong and his assistants, to be held at the beginning of 2021.

We believe that our physicians and scientists will soon be able to defeat COVID-19 and we will be able to meet, train and compete face to face again, as has been the norm in the past.

Until then, the Czech Taekwon‑Do Federation will strive to continue and further develop all its online activities, which it shares and will share for all Taekwon‑Do students around the world.

Marek Lazor

President, Czech Taekwon‑Do Federation