There is a new position for a full or part-time instructor in the Guelph Ontario area. For inquiries please email instructorjob@combatcanada.ca.

Check out some of the action from the 2011 Canadian Taekwondo Championships (Winnipeg). Photos by Alff Henry – Exposure Photography.

» Full photo gallery

Master Julio Vasquez passed away peacefully on Sunday December 5, 2010. He will be tenderly missed by his family and by the many thousands he has inspired through Taekwondo.

Master Vasquez’s remarkable athletic career spanned over three decades. He won the Dominican Republic Summer Games and the Pan American Championship in 1982, and in 1985 won the C.N.E. Taekwondo (I.T.F.) Championships upon arriving in Canada. He has been Canadian Champion five times, and a five-time contender at World Championships.

Master Vasquez retired from competition in 2002 to focus on coaching and athlete development. He was Canadian Team Manager in 2004 (Pan-American Games),…

It was a historic event — the first Youth Olympic Games, held in Singapore from August 14 to 24 — and two Taekwondo athletes had earned front row seats.

Melanie Phan and Stefan Bozalo were the two junior competitors who qualified to attend, and coached by Master Shin Wook Lim, both took home a bronze medal. Both athletes train at Master Lim’s TaeGeuk Taekwondo school in British Columbia.

In a unanimous vote, Canadian doctors supported the idea of mixed martial arts matches. Condemning MMA would not be possible while supporting recreational martial art tournaments including Taekwondo, Karate, and Judo.

The doctors of the Canadian Medical Association did however advocate a ban on “mixed martial arts prizefighting”, which includes matches in the UFC and other large MMA organizations.

» More information: The Star Phoenix

TaeGeuk Taekwondo was the scene for the first episode of The 100 Dollar Bet, a show by Big 2 Films that rewards participants for winning bizarre and challenging bets.

The challenger must take three shots to win the $100 — first by 11 year old Santiago, then by competitor Michelle Ge, and finally by Olympian Ivett Gonda. For a bonus $100, he takes a kick by Stefan Bozalo, Bronze Medalist at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games.

Warning: this video was shot under controlled circumstances and with expert supervision. Don’t kick untrained people for fun, with or without body protection.

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Some minor changes were made to competition rules at the WTF General Assembly in Tijuana, Mexico, on March 2, 2010.

According to a WTF news release,

The new rules stipulate that coaches shall not leave the 1 meter by 1 meter marked coach’s zone that indicates the position of the coach.

On the duration of the contest, the new rules stipulate that the duration of each round may be adjusted to 1 minute or 1 minute 30 seconds upon the decision of the technical delegate for the pertinent championships.

The revised rules will be posted on WTF.org and TKDrules.com when they become available.

The last major…

"Own the Podium" (OTP) is a Canadian sport program with the goal of improving the Canadian medal count at the Olympic Games. It recommends sports funding for appropriate usage based on which Canadian sports have high medal potential.

The vast majority of summer Olympic sports have not qualified for OTP funding. However, since 2008 Taekwondo has been qualified to receive substantial funding of nearly a half-million dollars annually. Taekwondo’s inclusion was based on the excellent performance of our athletes at the 2008 Olympics, and Taekwondo Canada’s 2008 High Performance Plan which outlined a strategy for achieving sustained excellence in Taekwondo sport.

All…

As a student of taekwondo, I often enjoy watching videos that feature different forms of fighting styles. This seems to be common to many martial arts students and a recent poll on Combat Canada shows that many of you enjoyed Ong Bak, featuring Muay Thai artist Tony Jaa.

Ong Bak 2 has been recently released to DVD to much anticipation. The story is not a sequel to Ong Bak, and takes place in ancient Thailand as we follow young Tien, the son of a murdered nobleman. After witnessing his family’s massacre, Tien eventually finds himself under the care of a group…

2009 Junior Canadian Pan Am Team. Photo courtesy Alff Henry / Exposure Net

In November 2009, the top Taekwondo players in the Americas convened in El Salvador for the biennial Junior Pan Am Championships. The Canadian team performed with excellence and earned two special awards:

• Best Male Athlete: Charles Bedard Desilets
• Best Referee: Master Eric Wah

See more photos in the Junior Pan Am photo gallery

Jeffrey Trieu: Gold medal, welterweight. Photo courtesy Alff Henry / Exposure Net

» 2009 Junior Pan Am…