Dragon Tang Soo Do

Teignmouth Demo 2009

What a different experience we had from last year, certainly from our point of view…

Last year we got there in plenty of time, arriving early on a Friday afternoon to enjoy the carnival, and a leisurely meal a local restaurant, spent the evening in a B & B, waking up to glorious sunshine, a wonderful cooked breakfast, and a slow saunter down to meet the rest of the gang at “The Den” for a briefing of what was going to happen that day.

This year was very different….with tears, tantrums, and tent wrestling! The facts are these: Warren had to work late after being promised an early finish. This is when we knew it was going to be just one of those days - but it turned out to be one of those weekends!

We received a frantic phone call saying our tent poles had snapped, and were hopefully going to be fixed, or should I say “bodged” with some gaffer tape. So with this task firmly in hand by Kev & Carolyn Powell, with help from Neal Harding and the Moriarty’s, all we had to worry about was getting there.

With cars filled up to the gunnels with camping gear, we were ready to go…..No Warren! Finally at 1930 hours we were on our way…..but not for long! Jo Bray’s car decided to have a temper tantrum, and refused to go any further until it had guzzled quite a few litres of water. Once this little drama had been sorted…the journey passed relatively quickly. We arrived at 2200 hours to unload the cars in darkness, much to Carolyn & Kev’s relief as we had their sleeping bags, and the kids were getting a bit tired by this time! We were gutted to have missed out on some fantastic food: Chicken curry, Shepherd’s pie, and Chilli being amongst some of the choices on offer. We made a note in the diary that simply said “b*#ger!” Tired and hungry we rolled into our sleeping bags, wondering what the next day would bring!?

During the night, in true British style- it persisted down! Stepping out of the sleeping bag into a pool of water first thing in the morning soon woke me up - Welcome to the delights of camping! Things did improve however, as opening up the tent flaps we saw the welcoming sight and smell of breakfast being cooked.

It turned out to be an interesting day, as “The Den” had been turned into a quagmire of mud. White dobohks and mud don’t go too well as all you mums’ know, so it was touch and go as to whether we would be able to do the demo. Not one to back down from a challenge, Master Paul Drury decided we would commandeer the marquee, after all the show must go on!

After placing a few boards down the staging area was complete. The programme needed quite a bit of reworking, as the demo area had greatly diminished in size. It was quite a bit of a headache, but Alison Harding and Master White did admirably under pressure. The demo proceeded in a fast and furious fashion, with everyone trying to keep up with the changes… especially Carolyn who had 10 seconds notice prior to going on, that she had to do Nianchi Cho Dan in reverse, after practising going in the normal direction. It would have been nice to be able to talk to old friends and acquaintances afterwards, however towards the end Warren slightly misjudged a breaking technique, and sustained a break to his arm. In true TSD spirit he carried on the complete the rest of his breaking techniques, and stayed for the photo shoot before going of to hospital to get his arm plastered up.

We thought we were going to miss out on more food and socialising, but the guys were great and started the Bar-b-que a bit later. Loaded up with beer, sausages and burgers it was great to relax in good company, sitting outside our tents with the sun going down on the horizon. The view across the bay was stunning. We finally had a good end to the day! Our grateful thanks must go to the chef’s and bottle washers who did a fantastic job all weekend. It would be nice to know just for the record how everyone else’s weekend went. Do you think all the mishaps dampened our spirits? Not on your life…made it an interesting weekend, and we’re all mad enough to do it again next year!

Tang Soo!

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