Sky is the Limit

Hello TKD friends,

Sorry this message is a couple of days late and in the English language. Be glad it’s in English though, because I absolutely murder your language. Anyhow, Keely and I had an awesome time at the demonstration, and would like to let you all know that you guys really KICKED ASS on stage!

When I got home the first thing I did was write out this huge blog about the Demo. If you don’t know what a “blog” is, it’s a sort of on-line journal where you can write your thoughts for everybody in the world to read.

Here is what I wrote about the Demonstration! (Oh, please don’t be offended that I didn’t use anybody’s names in the blog. It’s sort of a Blog No-No to use real names.) Here it is!

TAE KWON DO DEMO IN BELGIUM

Well, Saturday turned out to be a pretty hellish day for all involved with the Tae Kwon Do Demo, but in the end though, all went off fantastically!

The demonstration took place at the Expodroom (droom is pronounced drome) in the city of Bree, Belgium! The theme for the entire show was “The Sky is the Limits”!

We (the TKD demo team) were told that there would be 7,000 people in attendance, but upon arriving and then entering the Expodroom, we could clearly see that the stadium could only hold about 3,000 people.

Anyhow, only a couple of big named artists from Belgium were a part of the show. The rest was made up of dancers, ballerinas, and a couple of guys that do BMX bike tricks and breakdancing!

It was a very long day for all of us. I didn’t participate in the Demo, because the producers of the show limited the number of people that could be on stage. So I offered my services to my Master. My HBW also volunteered to help, and she really ended up saving us from disaster. Instead of the Demo team having only 2 stage hands (myself and a fella I’ll call Ireland) we had 3! Thank God too, because we wouldn’t have made the time limit given to us to set up the stage for the Demo without her.

We all started Satruday bright and early in the morning at 6:30! I had to give my neighbor kid, and his TKD buddy a ride to the demo. Anyway, we all hopped in the car a met up at Master’s place. From there, we all drove to the Expodroom! We had our first practice on stage at 9 in the morning, then we had another one at noon, and then another at 2 . We were supposed to be able to leave till the time of the show, but the Show Manager, wanted another run-through at 6 in the evening, so we were all stuck there till showtime!

By the time the show started at 9 in the evening, we were all exhausted. We were the second act of the night, and we were all set up backstage. I could see the crowd from where I was standing, and it was packed! All the seats were filled as well as the standing area in the middle! The Show Manager gave HBW, Ireland, and I the signal to run out and set up all the boards, bricks and weapons. We only had 30 seconds to get it all completed. We were all over the place on stage, but we got it done with only milliseconds to spare. The father of a member on the Demo Team is a conductor, and he had his orchestra come and play our music. The music for the demo was (played in this order), the Indiana Jones main theme, Star Wars’ March of the Empire theme, and the Los Angeles Olympic Games theme.

As soon as we all ran off stage, I gave the Show Manager the signal that all was ready, and he in turn signaled the TKD team to move! SHOWTIME BABY! The orchestra blasted out Indiana Jones, and the demo team burst out onto the main stage. The crowd went absolutely nuts when they came on.

It’s hard to explain the show in words, but I’ll do my best. Here goes. The team runs out like a bunch of savage warriors, and then bows to the audience. Then they pair off and go thru 1 steps and 2 steps. These are moves made for defense and then attack. Kinda like blocking and then punching, only slightly more impressive looking. Then there’s a whole lot of board breaking. During this part of the demo, I’m dressing one of the Hap Ki Do guys in his Darth Vader outfit for second part of the Demo. At the same time across stage HBW and Ireland are helping another Hap Ki Do guy get dressed as Darth Maul!

After all the boards are broken, the Orchestra breaks into the March of the Empire theme from Star Wars. How impressive that piece is to hear live. Anyhow, as soon as the song came on, the two guys that got all dressed up like Vader and Maul jumped on stage, and then started to fight each other with lightsabers. We made some cheesy lightsaber staff out of a clear tube and glowsticks. It looked really silly, but it worked and looked awesome on stage. The crowd jumped on their feet and cheered so loud you could hardly here the orchestra play! The fight lasts through the whole song and after they are done, the orchestra starts playing the L.A. Olympic theme and the Hap Ki Do team comes running on stage.

Because the Olympic theme starts off slow, the Hap Ki Do guys do one of their forms first. It’s not boring like you’d think it would be, because it is so beautiful. It’s like a dance, and when you see 5 guys doing it in unison, it’s absolutely breathtaking. Then they go into some of the Hap Ki Do attacks and takedowns. When the music starts to really pick up, the TKD team comes back out and breaks more boards, while the Hap Ki Do guys do more takedowns and throws. When the song comes close to finishing, the Hap Ki Do team splits in half and takes position on the left and right sides off the stage, and the TKD team goes straight for the bricks we’ve set up across the length of the orchestra! The Conductor comes out into the middle of the stage and starts going absolutely nuts whipping that little stick of his everywhere. The Olympic song comes to quite a loud and fast end, and when the ending came, the TKD guys jumped up and plunged fist first into a huge stack of bricks! It was so @#$%ing awesome, and the crowd cheered even loader than they did during the Vader/Maul fight we had!

HBW, Ireland and I ran onto the stage as the Demo team ran off. We quickly had to pick up all the bricks and broken boards in 30 seconds. We did it, and when we ran backstage, we were greeted with strong handshakes and deadly bear-hugs(I think my TKD master broke a couple of my ribs when he bear-hugged me). We were screaming and shouting and jumping around so much, the the Show Manager had to run back and tell us to shut the hell up! He was a friggin prick to us the whole day, so we basically told him to go @#$% himself and continued being insanely loud!

We all stayed and watched the rest of the show. We would have left after our set, but the Demo team had to stick around because at the end of the show they had to come back on stage and take a huge group bow.

By the time HBW, the neighbor kid, and I got home, it was almost 1 in the morning. As soon as we opened up the door to our house though, we knew the day wasn’t over for us yet. We got hit by a waft of dog shit in the house. Our German Shepherd puppy pooped all over his huge kennel, and decided to paint everywhere with it. The neighbors other son (AmericanWannabe) was supposed to be watching the dogs. Contrary to what we thought he didn’t do the whole day, he actually was doing. He was doing such a great job that he fed our puppy 4 bowls of dog food (He told us about the food today when he came over to drop off the keys to the house, and HBW and I questioned him about Apollo pooping and painting)!

Oh, well though. All’s well that ends well. We cleaned his “artwork” up as good as we could and then hit the hay for the night. Besides having to clean up dogshit, HBW and I had an awesome day in Belgium!

-Ken