JOIN UMASS TKD!
Anyone who would like to join the Umass TKD team is welcome to stop by any of our practices and either watch or participate regardless of how much previous experience. If you would like to join in on the class, please bring gym cloths and take a glance at our etiquette page before hand. Join the mailing list by going to this linkCornell Tournament
The next tournament is coming up fast!! Located in Ithaca NY at Cornell university, We hope to bring a team and Represent Umass! All competitors had a great time at MIT (see above) and are excited to attend! For all those interested, regardless of skill level, please talk to Chris or Dave in practice.MIT Recap
MIT 2009 PicturesMIT was a success!!!
We had a great turnout for the MIT tournament this past weekend bringing 16 people 10 of who competed.
Black belts Kate Fay and Kelsey Meyers both represented us in Black belt forms and faced very tough competition but did well for their first collegiate.
Our black belt team had a very exciting match against NYU starting with Ryan facing a very experienced and skilled heavy weight in his first collegiate tournament. Ethan won convincingly against NYU's middle weight showing very good fitness and skill. Last up was Daiki Okamoto fighting a nail biting match showing off some beautiful spinning hooks to his opponent's head only to lose narrowly in the last few seconds.
Dave Chan and Chris Lo performed well in red belt forms and while neither placed, Dave's score was very close to those of the top 4. They later paired up to fight as the Umass B team. Getting a bye in the first round and with Dave winning a solid fight they moved into the quarter finals where they were matched up against Cornell's reputable B team. Chris won in a exciting match that went into sudden death overtime in the lightweight division. Dave fought valiantly in a neck-to-neck middle weight match with his opponent pulling ahead in the final moments.
Sean Landergan was another first time competitor. He performed well in Green belt forms and learned a lot from his sparing match as the only person in the Umass C team.
Connie Huang, Kevin Lu and Angel Baez performed their forms in the white / yellow division admirably with both Kevin and Angel achieving top 5 in their group and top 10 overall - a great result for their first tournament.
Andrew Ha, Matt Solov, and Laura Molyneaux did an absolutely stunning job in the cheering section. It really did something for team spirit and helped all of our competitors with their support. Big thank you to them.
Although we have taken teams in the past to tournaments and returned with wins, this tournament really stands out as a success in that we as UMass Amherst established ourselves as a competitive team that poses a threat to the bigger and more experienced teams across all belt levels and sparring classes. All competitors returned from MIT with great experience and are excited for the next tournament.
Upcoming Tournaments
MIT - Cambridge, MassOct 18, 2009, Sunday
Cornell - Ithaca, NY
Nov 7, 2009, Saturday
????? - TBA
Nov 21 OR 22, 2009, Saturday OR Sunday
Any other announcements can be sent to cmlo@student.umass.edu to be posted
