Taekwondo comes out kicking in Iqaluit

Alexander McDermott is congratulated by taekwondo grand master Phap Lu after receiving his yellow belt with green stripe, while head instructor Don Peters is about to hand him his certificate. Lu came to Iqaluit Dec. 1 to 4 to evaluate students and award sport belts and certificates marking their progress. (PHOTO BY DEAN MORRISON)

Self-respect, discipline and how to be a better person, those are the lessons grand master Phap Lu wants students to take away from the martial art of taekwondo.

Lu, a ninth-degree black belt, came to Iqaluit from Dec. 1 to 4, where he evaluated students of the Iqaluit Taekwondo Society and awarded some with belts and certificates marking their progress.

“Nunavut Sport has been very supportive of the program, making it possible for me to travel here for my second time now,” Lu said. “We produce a good person for the community,[so] it is about more than just kicking and punching.”

Lu, the secretary-general of the International Taekwondo Federation, represents an organization with 20 million members around the world.

Taekwando, a martial art developed in Korea, combines combat techniques (mainly kicking), self-defense, sport, exercise, and, in some cases, meditation and philosophy.

It was Lu who encouraged Don Peters, principal at Iqaluit’s Aqsaarnit Middle School, into forming a club in Iqaluit last year.

Before coming to Iqaluit three years ago, Peters managed a similar club as the assistant-dean of students at Mount Alison University in New Brunswick.

While the Iqaluit club offers classes to adults, Peters sees it’s having an even larger draw among youth.

“The high school kids come in and help us teach the middle school kids, then they come at night and work with the adults,” Peters said. “It encourages the sharing of knowledge between everybody.”

These relationships also help taekwondo students make the leap from middle school to high school, he said.

“It is really helping us with the transition between the schools where there was a big gap before,” Peters said, adding that he’d like to see taekwondo grow throughout Nunavut.

One idea: training students at Nunavut Arctic College to become instructors.

“That way when they go back to their home communities they can take the sport with them,” he said.

Taekwando has already proven popular elsewhere in the circumpolar world, in Iceland and in Greenland where it’s the number one sport.

Peters would eventually like to see taekwando included as an official sport in the Arctic Winter Games.

Since 2000, taekwondo has been one of only two Asian martial arts included in the Olympic Games.

Interested in learning taekwondo? Contact Don Peters at 867-979-3900.