It’s been a busy year for Grandmaster Howard’s Taekwon-Do School but the graduation ceremony of Tuesday evening was one of the highlights. The ceremony was held in St Joseph’s School for the Deaf, Navan Road and was attended by 40 Tigers and Dragons Taekwon-Do students and their parents.
The evening started with Master Howard welcoming all the children and parents and he handed over to Grandmaster Howard who explained the significance of the event to the children and the school as a whole. He pointed out that many of the older children (Dragons) had been training with us since our first Tigers class in 2009 and it was great to see how well they have developed since then. Nineteen children were graduating from our dragon programme to our teen programme, where they will train at a higher level.
Grandmaster Howard said that he was happy to see so many (16) of the Tigers complete their 3 years of training and were now graduating onto the Dragons programme. He went on to say that it is not just the physical development that we are concerned with, but that the moral development of the child is equally important. ‘If as instructors we can raise students who are respectful, have good moral values and can make a positive contribution to society, then we have produced good students’.
After that the students and parents came up on stage to receive the belts and tags, certificates and Taekwon-Do journey books from Grandmaster Howard and Master Howard. But (judging by the swarm of locust-like feeding frenzy) the highlight of the night for the children was the cake, biscuits and juice which was served afterwards. It was a night off for our ‘healthy eating policy’, but isn’t that was a treat is supposed to be.
Thanks to the instructors and all our helpers (Derek Brady, Caroline Brady, Fiona Lyng, Lisa Parsons, Lee Parsons) for a helping to make it a very enjoyable evening.
