Professional Taekwondo Gambia

Photos from UK Martial Arts Show's post

Photos from UK Martial Arts Show's post

Its with the greatest pleasure that I inform you that I have been nominated for the "UK Martial Arts Hall of Fame". This is the nomination letter. I was recommended by GM QAISER KHAN 9TH DAN 🇬🇧 because of services promoting Martial Arts in Gambia 🇬🇲. I will travel to UK to receive the award. It will also be the opportunity to receive the Citation, the Certificate of Appointment and my 2nd. Dan certificate in Hapkido.
Thank you so much GM QAISER KHAN. Thank you my students. This builds you up further. It puts you and your country on the world map of Martial Arts. We will do a big celebration in style upon my return from the U.K. Be on standby.

Photos from UK Martial Arts Show's post

JUST A REMINDER
The idea of opening a school here in Dakar is not dead. Its just delayed because I have many trips planned up to July. I don't want to open it now and have to be closing whenever I travel. I will focus on it when I am done with all these trips.
Again, the schol will be called PROFESSIONAL MARTIAL ARTS CENTER SENEGAL. This is because I will teach TAEKWONDO, HAPKIDO, HOSINSOOL,and maybe just maybe KARATE SHOTOKAN. This will be a lot of work and I cannot do it alone. I will need help. I will be calling on my Black Belt students for assistance. They must be on stand-by.
Stay tuned.

"Smiling Coast Professional Taekwondo" is celebrating new training equipment. Congratulations.

Photos from Scotland Open Taekwondo Championship 2023's post

The book is now complete, with all the components in place. I have adjusted the draft with the comments I have received from Grand Masters. I will keep it for 1 week and not even think about it, read for a final review and submit to the publisher. I will have to travel to The Gambia to discuss and negotiate with them face to face. To be honest, the final product has exceeded my expections.
In Real Time
Stay Tuned.

The UK MARTIAL ARTS SHOW has everything you'd expect from its title . Demonstrations, seminars , trade stands and shops , on stage interviews, photos and meet the stars .
Loads of disciplines kung fu , karate , kickboxing, thai boxing, tae kwon do the list goes on and on.. let not forget weaponry, nunchaku, escrima, bo staff , k**a...

Book your tickets for the martial arts 2023 event at www.theukmas.co.uk

I have resumed Karate training after a 2-month hiatus. KION is fine..Kata is a problem.
I am messing up big time. Karate Katas are just too long. I expect to get back to speed in a short time. Then, I will take up new Kata. Only few left out of 26.

THE BIG BANG
Big things are happening and others are in the pipeline. They will be dropping like asteroids, with a Big Bang, one by one. Watch out for Month of May 2023.
Stay tuned!!!

The book is almost finished. Just a few more things and I will submit to the publisher for editing and publication. I am really excited about it and looking forward to it. I haven't published a book in a very long time. I got rusty. And this will be my first book in English and about Taekwondo. I normally publish in Spanish. I have received very positive comments from Grand Masters..
In Real Time.
Stay tuned!!!

DISLOYALTY, BETRAYAL AND UNGRATEFULNESS
■Master Jose Goma introduced Taekwondo in The Gambia in 1987, created The Gambia Taekwondo Association. However, his own students wrote a petition letter against him and sent it to the National Sports Council. This happened in 2012, an election year. What did he do that was so bad that they could not wait for elections that were due that year and voted him out? Elections were held in 2013 being voted by the same people who signed the petition but for one year only that is, up to December 2014. Humiliating. He left the country the following year, in 2015.
■Master Sun is a Korean national that has done so much for Gambian Taekwondo. He secured Kukkiwon Dan certification for Gambian Black Belts and built an excellent Taekwondo training facility. In spite of this, some of his students and for whom he obtained Kukkiwon certification, participated in drafting a letter full of unsupported but damaging allegations to Kukkiwon. This happened in 2018. He was badly bruised including emotionally. He almost quit.
■My case: my senior student, whom i raised and built up to what he's today, has become my worst enemy, even insulting me on social media with his enablers. I have left the country.
Master Jose Goma, Master Sun and I are the pioneers of Taekwondo in The Gambia, having devoted much time, efforts and resources to develop Taekwondo. The 3 of us, expatriates, have also been mistreated, betrayed and abused by some of our own students. Is there a pattern here? Judge for yourselves.

Work is proceeding smoothly. I am revising, polishing, integrating comments as they come, making it watertight. Its looking good.
In Real Time.
Stay tuned.

My 10-day trip to The Gambia has ended. It had nothing to do with Taekwondo but Taekwondo became part of it. I had a long meeting with Black Belts. I had a lengthy discussion with a Publisher and visited the National Sports Council. Gambian Taekwondo is in complete disarray.

Practitioners of Karate are called Karateka, and of Judo, Judoka. The practitioners of Taekwondo are called what? Officially, they are called Taekwondoin. For some unknown reasons, this is not getting traction. In fact, most Taekwondo practitioners don't know it. In my case, I don't use it. And the reason is simple: I don't like it. I prefer Taekwondo Practitioner. Thats what I use all the time.

MORE ON TAEKWONDO AND EDUCATION
African countries spend very little on education: about 14% of total government spending and less than 4% of GDP. However, many of them spend more on defence than on education and health combined. In fact, most African countries have not reformed their education system since independence. This means, the colonial education system is still in place. This partially explains why the rest of the world is going North while Africa is going South. And we complain of marginalization. This also explains our chronic illiteracy rates, which is still killing the continent. Even these expenditure figures are questionable because of corruption. The implications for Taekwondo are disastrous. African Taekwondo Masters are incapable of engaging Kukkiwon on substantive matters. They approach Kukkiwon as beggars, and this is how Kukkiwon treats us. Africa is the only continent that still follows Kukkiwon blindly. However, only 2 individuals represent Africa at the Kukkiwon Advisory Committee. One of them is a Korean and the other is an African who nobody seems to know how he was selected. Engaging African Masters on a subject like this takes you nowhere. Silence is the answer. Similarly, Taekwondo philosophy is codified in written texts. High illiteracy rates dictate that this knowledge will never be fully assimilated, no matter how well the instructor explains it and how hard he/she tries. Nothing can justify that a bunch of idiots can go on social media to insult somebody that rescued them from the gutter. I cannot recall a day I started a class without lecturing my students on Taekwondo philosophy for 5-10 minutes. The Tenets of Taekwondo and Student Oath in big characters are posted on the walls of the Dojang as well as the Dojang Etiquette and other stuff. After so many years of training in this kind of environment they still behave like animals. Illiteracy is a serious handicap. It's really killing Africa. It's not allowing African Taekwondo to prosper. Its keeping Gambian Taekwondo perennially in the doldrums.

Differences between Karate and Taekwondo. Just to add that Karate originated in Japan while Taekwondo originated in Korea.

I published this book in Spain a long time ago. So, I have a bit of experience. Judging from the discussion with the publisher here, it seems the book publication process is the same. I assume there are international standards that must be followed by all countries.

Stay..Learning..Karate..

Sorry, I forgot to share with you:
One BIG Grand Master in UK has offered to write and sign the preface to my book.
Thank you, GM.
In real time
Stay tuned!!

APOLOGIES
I would like to apologize for the shameful venom spewed by 3 former students. The vast majority of my Black Belts are well-behaved boys and girls hailing from good homes. Among them, there are 2 members of the Gambia Armed Forces (GAF) and 1 member of the Gambia Police Force (GPF). There are also high school students, university students, young businessmen, managers, tour guides, etc. We had a long meeting on Wednesday with the participation of the father on 2 of them. This is the true PTG Family. Those spewing venom are ungrateful and miserable human beings. They don't represent PTG. "By their fruits, they are known".

WHY THE CITATION: OUR ACHIEVEMENTS
I. 23 Black Belts certified by:
■The World Taekwondo Jidokwan Federation
■The New York State Taekwondo Association
■Soon to be certified by The Kukkiwon
■"1st Aiders" certified by "The Gambia Red Cross"
■Certified Instructors
II. Taekwondo Clubs, most fully equipped
■PTG (the mother)
■5 New Taekwondo schools
III. Landmark documents:
■Training Programme
■Instructors' Manual
■Upcoming book
IV. Elevated profile of Taekwondo through:
■PTG the first Taekwondo school to meet international standards
■Well-publicised and well-attended Public demonstrations
■Well-publicised and well-attended Public, massively-attended promotion events
■Support to other Taekwondo schools
■Support to Gambia Taekwondo Association
■Participation in international competition
■Media interviews and newspaper articles, documentaries
■page with over 12,000 followers
■Website
V: Support to our Black Bels
■To open and run their own schools
■To secure international certification (at no cost to them)
This is us. This is what we do.

THE FALL OF MAN
One of the things I liked about my work is working, living and visiting many countries. I went as far as Vietnam. I have been exposed to so many cultures. I discovered that, in essence, people are the same everywhere: they cry; they laugh; they greet each others; they marry, have babies and raise them; they say thank you as a show of appreciation; etc. Its the form they do these things thats different, the essence is the same. These are the things that set us apart from animals, they are the fundamentals of our humanity. The fact that these things are observed in a remote village in Africa and in a remote village in Vietnam, two villages that have never been in contact with each other, is critical in terms of our humanness.
Some of you may have read the insults that were rained on me yesterday by my former students, for whom I did so much. They are ungrateful and miserable human beings (they look like humans). They are;
■Baboucar Saine
■Abdoulie Sowe
■Ousman Hydara
■Lamin Boy Daffeh
Ungrateful people lack an essential part of humanness. If, on top of that they actively deny the support that has been provided to them for so many years in the presence of witnesses and with documented evidence, that's pure evil or they are mentally re****ed or both.
Fortunately, they are 3 out of 23 Black Belts. The other 20, with whom I had a long meeting on Wednesday, are reading in disbelief, embarrassed that their peers are behaving so badly. I have to calm them down. No need to waste time on these losers. But, they will have to stop their madness. At this point, a clear message may have been communicated to them along these lines. KARMA is coming big time.

Dear All,
I am happy to inform you that I have been honored with a CITATION by "The World Taekwondo Jidokwan Federation" , based in Seoul (South Korea). This is given to me for promoting JIDOKWAN in Gambia 🇬🇲 and Senegal 🇸🇳 following a recommendation by GM QAISER KHAN 9th Dan. This is a huge privilege reserved for few. Thank you so much, GM. And thanks to Jidokwan Korea Headquarters.
I dedicate this important award to my faithful, loyal and respectful students. I would not have achieved this without them.. This will definitely motivate me to continue to support them.
The Best is Yet to Come!
Stay tuned!!

Wisdom...