A family vacation to the United Kingdom just took an exciting detour for an Okotoks martial artist.
Hana Taekwon-Do practitioner Callum Reeve will be carrying the Okotoks flag for Canada at the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) World Cup 2012 in beachside Brighton, England Oct. 4 to 7.
“We were going to go on vacation to England to see some family,” said Reeve. “And I’ve been doing very, very well in my past tournaments and my parents were thinking that maybe I could go to worlds.”
It wasn’t merely parental bias from the Reeves.
Turns out the 12-year-old martial artist made enough of an impression of Master Clint Norman, the head instructor of the vaunted Regina South Zone Club and head of Canada’s World Cup team, at national and western tournaments to ensure a spot on the squad.
“He said I could go and it was very nice to get his acceptance,” Reeve said.
Reeve’s rise to World Cup level competition is not surprising given his winning pedigree during his four years with Hana Taekwon-Do.
However, the season didn’t get off to a promising start for the Grade 8 Okotoks Junior High student. “I broke my arm at the beginning of the year and I just got it back together,” Reeve said. “We were playing a bit of dodgeball and I went to get the ball and one of (Hana’s) black-belts tried to grab it with their foot and smashed my arm.”
Six weeks later and Reeve was back at the Hana training facility in Okotoks.
Reeve has never failed to win a medal since he began to show at western and national tournaments and was the 2011 National sparring gold medalist as a blue belt last November.
However, he’s never been part of a tournament quite on this scale.
“This is really my first,” Reeve said. “I’ve heard about them. I’ve watched them on TV. I just need to concentrate on my goal, which is to try and get at least silver and I’m really hoping to get gold.
“The biggest challenge is going to be my movement, making sure I know where my opponent is, trying to counter them and just playing the game properly.”
Reeve, who earned his red belt, black stripe in July, will have to be at his best in Brighton.
“You need to be an overall good fighter obviously,” said Reeve. “There are going to be over 1,600 fighters, 70 in my division (red belt, black stripe) and 567 colour belts.”
The competition breaks down the fighters by age, belt and weight meaning Reeve will be in a field of approximately 20 martial artists vying for the podium.
“We go for points, but it’s not point-stop,” Reeve explained of the judged aspect of the sport that differs from wrestling. “You basically go in the ring and try and hit him as many times as possible. There are different places you hit and heights you hit and how high you have to be on the ground to hit to score different points.”
Reeve will be competing in both patterns and sparring in the British city.
“Patterns is more technical and you need to think a lot more and it’s really the core of taekwon-do,” Reeve said. “Where sparring is you get in the ring and you have all this adrenaline.”
A hormone the Okotokian surely won’t be lacking in Brighton.
For more information on the ITF World Cup 2012 go to www. http://www.itfworldcup2012.com.
