Taekwondo’s Got Talent? A story of joy and resilience
OLYMPIC COACH PRAISES ‘EXCEPTIONAL’ KIDS FROM GRENFELL AREA
A Taekwondo Master has been given a mayor’s award for running online classes.
Top Taekwondo teacher John Webster says children he teaches in North Kensington are “exceptional”.
He should know as he’s a coach for the New Zealand Olympic team.
The London-based Taekwondo Master hopes he will join the Olympic hopefuls in Tokyo for this summer’s games if Covid rules allow.
But while he has been coaching the top athletes remotely, he’s also been working with children who normally train with him at the Jaguars and Golden Eagles group at the Curve centre in North Kensington.
The Curve was set up after the tragic Grenfell fire in June 2017 and provides health, therapy and wellbeing services in North Kensington - it also helps lots of kids living in a deprived area have much better opportunities.
More than 100 of these children aged four to 18 have been joining in Master Webster’s online classes during the restrictions of lockdown and he’s glowing with praise for them.
“They are exceptional,” he says, and hopes that the sport is giving them aspirations to be good martial artists and use the skills they pick up to help them.
When he first ran a course at the centre he thought it would just be for six weeks.
But it continued and when lockdown started he transferred the classes online.
“It’s very different teaching the
kids on Zoom rather than face to face,” he says. “I think the kids deserve it more.
“They turn up week in, week out when they are doing homework as well. I think it’s remarkable. When school was closed there was nothing that they were doing that was normal. This was some normality.”
He has clocked up 1,500 online classes and just been honoured in the Kensington and Chelsea Mayor’s Awards for his work teaching children from the community.
He modified the classes and also introduced some other fun activities including Taekwondo Does Bake Of and Taekwondo’s Got Talent. It’s given children from The Curve the chance to compete digitally with children from other classes John teaches.
They’ve also done seminars with coaches in the USA, Philippines and Korea and competed in a world championships where they picked up more awards to fill the trophy
cabinet at The Curve.
And some children even wanted classes over the Easter Bank Holiday as normal.
“It’s just something they like doing,” he says. Most of the kids seem to look forward to it because they enjoy it.”
During lockdown everyone found things tough.
“You could see the frustration with the parents. They said it’s difficult to cope, they had to cope being a mother, policeman, friend, 24 hours a day,” says Master Webster.
So sometimes after school activities like online taekwondo were a treat for doing schoolwork.
It was also an element of normality which could carry on digitally, unlike some other activities like swimming and football.
Master Webster is a former psychology lecturer at Brunel University. He noticed that children were finding this last lockdown during the winter months much harder.
“Psychologically they were not doing as well. It got dark at 4PM,” he says.
“They have not been coping as well, I think it’s the same as everybody. If you are stuck inside I think there’s only so many times you can tidy your house.”
But their flexibility and core fitness has improved as they have kept their classes up and they are getting ready for their first class outdoors at an open space near The Curve.
“They will just be happy to be outside. It’s about socialising and seeing their friends,” says John.
Tasha Gordon whose three children attend classes said: “A lot of us have been doing classes in our front room or our bedroom. It’s given the kids something to focus on apart from their homework.”
The schools have noticed an improvement in children’s attitude too.
Ms Gordon said: “Master John has physically and mentally kept these kids sane. He’s run core fitness, sparring and team sparring classes to give students variety.
“He has kept the timetable going so everybody can just join in. He’s gone above and beyond.”