NGTKD

Last night, I had the chance to take part in a seminar with multiple time Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Champion and ADCC winner Braulio Estima! The seminar was organised by my Instructors, Chris rees and Rob Taylor, and took place in Swansea at the Gracie Barra Chris Rees Academy headquarters with more than 80 adult students. It was once again a great opportunity to train under such an amazing grappler and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu legend. The seminar went on for 3 hours and we went through a series of drills and techniques and tested them in live sparring towards the end of the class. Braulio is a fantastic instructor and his technical ability, the way he explains every position and every detail and his knowledge made this one of the best seminars I've had the chance to attend. A few students got promoted as well at the end of the night and received their new belts, which made this an even more memorable event. I cannot wait for the next one!

On Sunday the 4th of November Miss Jade Jones, Olympic gold Medalist of Wales, made a special appearance and presented a Taekwondo training seminar at the National Sports Centre for Wales in Cardiff. Jade who is now the current World Taekwondo number 1 and Olympic Champion was promoted By Mr Joseph Schembri and Mr Gordon Fearn, both former Taekwondo World Champions who are very well known throughout the Martial Arts community. Jade began training in Taekwondo at a very young age in Flint, North Wales. When she was a teenager her grandfather brought her down to train at the National Junior Welsh squad training in Cardiff under Mr Schembri and Master Gianni peros. From a young age her talent shone through and after achieving many titles and representing Wales in non Olympic TKD, it was obvious she had bigger achievements ahead. Jade then went on to train in Manchester, at the British TKD Olympic head quarters and the rest is history. Jade is the 1st Olympic TKD champion from the UK a...

Massive congratulations to Liam Sloan , Harvey Stockford and Joseph Davies who recently undertook a very challenging Black Belt grading test to achieve the rank of 1st Dan Black Belt in Taekwondo. The T.A.G.B. National Black Belt grading took place on the 19th of October 2012 in Bristol and put students through their paces to demonstrate their technical abilities, as well as their pattern knowledge, application of self-defense, theory of Taekwondo and sparring skills. The students were examined by a panel of Masters and Senior Instructors of the T.A.G.B. in what proved to be an extremely technically and physically demanding grading. All 3 boys represented their school and Instructor in the very best light, and are true role models and inspiration for other students at the club by becoming the first ever Black Belts at the Neil Gimbel Taekwondo school. The years of dedication, hard training and commitment have finally paid off! Well done boys for this great achievment! ...

The T.A.G.B. British Championships 2012 will be on the 25th of November and will take place at the Skydome Arena in Coventry. Address: Skydome Arena Croft Road CV1 3AZ Coventry All entry forms to be in by the 1st of November please. Start time will be 9am. COMPETITORS All competitors may only wear standard white T.A.G.B. doboks or the most recent national doboks (No club doboks). Please contact me for more infos.

Taekwondo Olympic Gold Medallist Jades Jones is coming to Cardiff on the 4th of November 2012 for a seminar. Do not miss this amazing opportunity to come and train with an Olympic Champion and learn from one of the best in the World. The seminar will take place at: Wales Institute of Sport Sophia Gardens CF11 9SW CARDIFF Juniors 12pm-2pm Adults 2pm-4pm Please see details and get your tickets fast as spaces are limited and will go very quickly! Contact me for more informations.

Massive congratulations to Jade Jones who claimed Britain's first Olympic Taekwondo gold medal and the hosts' 25th of the 2012 London Olympic Games on Thursday. Jade Jones, a 19-year-old from Flint in North Wales, became the first Briton to win Olympic gold at Taekwondo by defeating the Chinese world champion Yuzhuo Hou, in the under-57kgs featherweight final. Jade, nicknamed the "Head Hunter", simply blew everyone away in the under-57kg starting with a 15-1 victory over Serbian Dragana Gladovic and then putting out world number one Tseng Li-Cheng of Chinese Taipei in the semi-finals. The home crowd were in full voice again 24 hours later as Lutalo Muhammad delivered a first men's Olympic medal when he recovered from a quarter-final loss to eventual silver medallist Nicolas Garcia Hemme to come through the repechage and beat Arman Yeremyan of Armenia in the bronze contest.

On the 23rd of September 2012, Mr Joseph Schembri is bringing Mr Warren Vice to Wales for a seminar! Do not miss this great opportunity to train and learn with a multiple times Taekwondo World Champion and one of the most successful fighters of the T.A.G.B. Warren has won over 10 world titles and has represented team GB for many years. He has a tremendous amount of experience in combat sport and this is an unmissable chance to train and gain knowledge from the best. Mr Schembri is hosting Mr Vice for this amazing seminar so please see details and get your tickets fast as it is limited to 100 participants. The seminar will take place at the Welsh Institute of Sport in Cardiff. Please contact me for further informations.

Great results for the T.A.G.B. yesterday at the BTC Black Belts Teams Tournament in London! The Championships were held at the ExCel Arena and was part of SENI ExCel London 2012. 3 male T.A.G.B. Teams ended up on the podium with Wales and Scotland in joined 3rd place and England taking 1st place. A very good ITF Team lost to England in the finals and came second. The women English T.A.G.B. Team also came 1st and the female T.A.G.B. Scottish Team took bronze! The tournament was just an other reminder that the T.A.G.B. is still the best Taekwondo association in the UK and has got the strongest competitors in the country. The competition included Team Patterns, Team Sparring and destruction and the level of all the athletes was excellent. Well done to all the competitiors who took part in this great event and I'm looking forward to next year!

SUNDAY 24TH JUNE 2012 KETTERING LEISURE VILLAGE (THE ARENA) THURSTON DRIVE KETTERING NORTHANTS NN15 6PB START TIME: 9.30 A.M. ALL COMPETITORS Closing date for entries will be: Saturday 16th June 2012. Entry fee’s: Competitor: £12 per event. Spectators: £8.00 TAG team: £15 per 3-person team. To be paid and entered on the day. PLEASE TALK TO YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Well done to all the competitors taking part today in the Welsh Open Championships in Cardiff. Everybody fought hard, improved their game and it was nice to see all of the young fighters getting some experience for future competitions. Congratulations to Harvey Stockford who took bronze in his division. Well done everyone: Harvey Stockford Liam Sloan Heath Webb Arthur Short Jacob Seamark Michael Wilks Rhydian Williams

The Welsh Open Championships will take place on Sunday the 20th of May 2012 in Cardiff. The competition will be held at UWIC in Cyncoed. All competitors to arrive by 9:30am Could all entry forms be submitted by Monday 7th of May. University of Wales Institute Cardiff Cyncoed Road, Cardiff, CF23 6XD Sunday 20th May 2012 COMPETITORS All competitors may only wear standard white T.A.G.B. doboks or the most recent national doboks (No club doboks). Please contact me for forms and informations.

Congratulations to all the students taking part in the Welsh Closed Championships today. A special mention to Rhydian williams who fought really hard again to take gold and win his division and Hannah Sloan who took silver after a hard fight in the final! Well done to all who competed, fought brilliantly and represented the Cowbridge club very well. Rhydian Williams Hannah Sloan Ellice Stockford Michael Wilks Jake White Ben Sutton

The 2012 T.A.G.B. Taekwondo Welsh Closed Championships will be held at Newport Leisure Centre, on the 29th of April 2012. Competition starts at 9.30am. Could all entry forms be submitted by thursday 19th of April. Newport Centre 1 Kingsway Newport South Wales NP20 1UH Please contact your instructor for forms or information.

This year T.A.G.B. English Championships: Sunday 18th of March 2012 Telford International Centre St Quentins Gate Telford TF3 4JH Doors open at 9 o'clock. Please contact me for competition forms and details.

Tonight was our first class back after the Christmas Holidays! It was nice to see everyone back, ready to train hard and start the new year. We also had a little belt ceremony for the students who took part in the grading on the 19th December 2011. Everybody did really well and moved on to the next grade, making it an other successful end of the year grading. 2012 is going to be a very busy year as we have many tournaments, gradings and seminars lined up. We will also have a few students from Cowbridge grading for their Black Belt in April and October. Exciting news for them and me and it is now time to start working towards it. I am sure that 2012 will be a very successful year and wish all the students good luck in their training.