What a year

Before we look back, a few key dates to look forward to

4th January - Holiday programs start (https://events.humanitix.com/januaryatchungdo)
11th January - Chatswood - Adults and evening (6pm on wards) classes resume
16th January - Chatswood - Regular classes resume
30th January - Lindfiled, Beacon Hill, Manly, Mosman classes resume
1st February - North Sydney Girls classes resume (NSG/NSB students are welcome to attend classes during January though)

A week left in 2020 and as we saw with the Northern Beaches cluster a lot can happen in a week!

2020 started with high hopes and expectations for many of us.
At Chung Do Taekwondo we had taken a bold step opening our full time dojang 46 years after GM Suh first opened the school.
There was a mad scramble to get everything ready, the entire fitout was done in 3 days and mats were still being laid 1 hour before the first class.

We did a lot, demonstration for Willoughby Council's Lunar New Year Celebration, a number of students competed at the Australian Masters Championships and we had a great seminar with Taekwondo and Krav Maga master Jason Liem. Meanwhile we were watching the Covid19 situation overseas very closely and just 6 weeks after opening everything went into lock down.

Thank you to the 50 or so families that trained at home and supported us during shutdown. Some were stuck between a cupboard and a bed, others had 3 people crammed into a small room, some had noise complaints from their neighbours from jumping up and down in their apartments. I know it wasn't easy for all of you.

By my initial estimate, we're only at the 2/3 mark of the Covid19 battle. In this (hopefully) third and final round the effects on white collar workers are probably going to start kicking in as more companies undergo restructuring.

As we go into next year, if you need our assistance reach out and we will help where we can from a continuity of training, resume/interview prep/career coaching perspective.

Despite being an tough time financially, there were a number of silver lining moments that came out of shutdown:

• Opportunity to train with some of the best in the world
  • Julien Le 3x World Bronze Medallist/19x French National Champion/2xEuropean Champion
  • The Vietnam National Poomsae Team
  • Australian Olympian Safwan Khalil
  • World Champion Jean Pierre Sabito
  • Korean poomsae powerhouse dojang Taesong
  • GM Kang Shin Chul and Master Kang Yujin from Namchang dojang in Korean
• A number of old students rejoined because life became less busy for a period
• The grading straight after lock down showed how well the students trained at home and that it's possible to learn Taekwondo online - something that I've still got rolling around in the back of my head
• I got 3 months of my own training in (we learnt that on Zoom, if we stop, the kids stop too :D)

It was very lucky that lock down ended mid June, had it gone longer it wouldn't have been pretty.
Having a dojang helped us keep some momentum during the year and also ensured we had a fast rebound once lock down ended. Some of our locations didn't reopen until Term 4 (4 months later) and we know many other Masters who have had to move their schools to other suburbs which is a hit given that most dojangs are focused on specific local communities.

Coming out of lock down was an opportunity to overhaul some of our operations.
We took learnings from the effectiveness of belt specific classes, class limits required us to rethink start/end times/capacity etc and at the same time we experienced significant student growth across all age ranges.

It was tricky, thanks for bearing with us during the second half of the year. We had 7 timetable changes in the last 6 months as we catered for increase demand and Covid19 related curve balls e.g. needing to move North Sydney Girls into the dojang.

Key learnings from 2020
As the year draws to a close a few key thoughts that I've come away with from this year.

• Loyalties run deep - Despite the challenges everyone faced this year it was great to see the support from the club. As mentioned, some people really struggled through Zoom training but they stuck with it. Some trained with us during shutdown only and once in person resumed, everything got too busy again. Others joined after shutdown and have been strong supporters since joining. Thank you to everyone.
• Thanks to the team - there are a number of people who keep things running. Steve my co-kwanjangnim (school owner), David (big shout out to David who has done a lot of hours this year), Andy, Gem, Sebastian. Behind the scenes my wife Jess for letting me chase this Mr Miyagi dream, Winny my key sounding board, Mrs Suh for all the grading certificates, Ping for his great work as NSG convenor, Khoa who's been doing the video editing for the poomsae tutorials, Jahyi for translations and other random requests, Jason for other video editing and Ronny.
  
• Look forwards and adapt - thinking about how things "used to be" isn't necessarily going to solve/improve the situation. Acknowledge the past but live in the present and look to the future. Same lessons that successful poomsae/sparring competitors learn!!
  
• Organisations and leaders sometimes need to take quick and drastic action - the slow turnarounds that we've seen from Corporates in the past are not always the way to go.
  
• Both focus and diversification are important - Energy and attention are limited resources. To achieve a high level of result requires single focus - I could not have run the dojang this year if I was still in corporate. However, it was lucky that I still run a HR/Recruitment Tech consultancy. While not a key focus, the consultancy helped bring in some much needed funds during a couple of tricky months.
• 2020 hasn't been a write off - sure we didn't get to do everything we wanted but at the same time we've done more than we imagined we would. We all have the same number of seconds in a day, it's up to us to decide what to do with them.
• Sleep and milk tea (no sugar)/rice yoghurt drinks are inversely related. Less of one means more of the other.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy end of year and hoping for a calmer and less adrenaline fuelled 2021!