The Iowa State National Collegiate Taekwondo team competed this year at the 22nd Annual National Collegiate Championship and had great success as it kicked its way to victory.

The tournament was held Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo., with over 108 colleges and 390 athletes attending. ISU sent 30 athletes to compete in the various divisions. ISU placed first in the overall team standings and second in the championship team standings.

The team is composed of ISU Karate Club members. ISU has four martial arts clubs: Taekwondo, Judo, Karate and Hapkido.

“Technically we should be the Karate/Taekwondo club,” Bonnie Harrison said. Harrison is a senior in exercise science and president of the Karate Club. She is also the captain of the sparring team and helps coach the team when Master Yong Chin Pak is absent.

Master Pak received coach of the year honors at the tournament, and also coaches the Hapkido, Judo and Taekwondo clubs. He is currently back in his homeland of Korea, accepting another award, and was unavailable for comment.

“Karate uses more hand techniques and low kicks, while Taekwondo stresses more jumps and high kicks,” said Jeff Rothermel, junior in mechanical engineering.

“Master Pak teaches Olympic-style sparring. The Taekwondo Club doesn’t learn USTU, or Olympic style sparring. They learn a point-style sparring,” Harrison said.

The team practices regularly during the week, but for the national tournament they practiced even more.

“In the preceding weeks, we concentrate more on sparring, forms and do extra pad work. The week before, we lay off the contact, so no one gets hurt,” Rothermel said.

“We practice all season long, but work even harder when a tournament comes along,” Miranda Hinrichs said.

The hard work was beneficial for Hinrichs in the tournament, as she received the outstanding freshman of the year award.

“I was really excited about winning,” she said. “I just wanted to do my best, and working hard really paid off. But all my glory goes to the Lord.”

Several of the members joined the club because they had previous experience in Taekwondo, but some joined just on the reputation of the club and Master Pak.

“I joined because I had heard about us as one of the top clubs in the nation,” Hinrichs said. “I have been involved in Taekwondo since fifth grade, and heard great things about Master Pak. The pace was a lot faster, but I think I have adjusted well.”

“It was something I thought about doing. I came to ISU, and knew other people in it,” Rothermel said. “I heard that Master Pak was good, and my freshman year, my RA [resident assistant] was in the club, and I signed up that way.”

For the tournament, the members were placed in two divisions: championship and colored. The championship division consists of black belts only, while the colored belt division is made up of all the lesser-ranking belts.

In each division, athletes compete in both sparring and forms. Sparring involves fighting against another opponent, while a referee records points.

“You wear pads like shin pads and head gear. There are no shots to the back, or below the belt. You can’t use your hands to the head,” Rothermel said.

Forms are routines that an individual goes through in front of a panel of judges. “Forms are much more of an individual competition. It’s something like figure skating,” Rothermel said. “Judges look at stances, snap and power.”

In addition, each athlete is put into a specific weight class for the tournament. The classes are similar to those in a wrestling meet and include: thin, fly, bantam, feather, light, welter, middle and heavy.

To win an medal, an athlete needed to get first, second or third place. Any athlete who placed in the top three in the championship division is now eligible to try out for the United States Collegiate Team, which will compete in the World University Games in Mexico in 1998.

The 2000 Olympic Taekwondo team will draw members from this team, and ISU will have six athletes eligible.

Watch them, and other members of the club this spring, as Ames hosts the United States Taekwondo Union’s Senior National Taekwondo Championships at Hilton Coliseum.