BY AINSLEY WALTERS, Freelance Writer
International Tae Kwon Do instructors Master Hector Marano and Master Willem Bos. - CONTRIBUTED
THE JAMAICA TAE Kwon Do Association has a big international instructors seminar set for this weekend at the Golf View Hotel and Belair School in Mandeville.
Master Hector Marano, an eighth degree Argentinean and chairman of the International Tae Kwon Do Federation (ITF) Instruction Committee, will conduct the seminar along with Master Willem Bos of Italy.
Master Bos is also an eighth degree and chairman of the ITF Tournament and Umpire Committee.
The ITF international instructors will hold black belt seminars on Thursday and Friday at the Golf View Hotel with the final night session reserved for senior black belts.
The coloured belts, from white to red, will have their day on Saturday at the Belair School.
Cyril Josephs, president of the Jamaica Tae Kwon Do Association, said the eighth degree instructors are in Jamaica to impart their knowledge, plus share developments taking place in other parts of the world.
"Tae Kwon Do Jamaica is a part of a global organisation and it is always thriving to maintain the highest level of technical ability and discipline, he explained.
"We are always in frequent contact with colleagues in other countries, these gentlemen have histories going back for decades. They have reached the pinnacle in Tae Kwon Do and are recognised world leaders," he added.
The Jamaica Tae Kwon Do Association has been accelerating its national programme by incorporating the sport in high schools as well as attending and applying to stage world championship tournaments in Jamaica.
Masters Marano and Bos are in the island to upgrade the quality of local instructors as well as to evaluate Jamaica's position as a potential venue for world and regional tournaments, which the local association believes would be significantly profitable.
"We attended a seminar hosted by both men in Miami in February, plus they will also be a part of the World Junior games in Honduras, to which we are sending Nicholas Dussard, who has a very good shot at gold later this month," said Josephs.
The local Tae Kwon Do boss described the seminar as "an excellent opportunity for everybody in the discipline to come out and sign up".
"There's a cost because we have to subsidise the instructors' fees," he said. "For black belts, the fee is US$150 for two days and US$50 for coloured belts on Saturday."
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