A GROUP of 15 instructors, students and parents from Greenock’s Scottish Tae Kwon Do Academy travelled to Orlando Florida for the bi-annual summer camp.

Aimaa members and non-members from around the world came together in Orlando last month to train under the guidance of Grandmaster Hee Il Cho and many other grandmasters, masters and instructors.

Aimaa camp is a bi-annual gathering of like-minded martial artists to a chosen destination for a week-long training camp.

All classes this year were held in the morning allowing student to go off and enjoy the many attractions that Orlando has to offer.

The previous camp in 2012 was hosted by Aimaa Europe on the picturesque Channel Island of Jersey.

Aimaa members from Ireland, England, Scotland and the USA were joined by guests from Norway and even Brazil. All the groups were training hard and forging friendships through Tae Kwon-Do, and together developing a solid camaraderie which grew and grew as the week progressed.

The camp got off to a great start with the academy’s first class being taught by Grandmaster Ameris, Aimaa’s technical director and most senior student of Grandmaster Cho.

GM Ameris led all students through a highly informative seminar, focusing on elbow striking.

From both traditional and a street/self-defence point of view. GM Ameris is renowned throughout the martial arts world for his extremely effective and dynamic self-defence abilities.

On day two of the camp, Grandmaster Cho took to the floor for the first of his seminars.

From his introduction speech, GM Cho expressed his wisdom of nearly 75 years with the encouragement to every student to rise above the small concerns and complaints of everyday living and embrace a more humble, accepting and forgiving attitude towards others.

This year’s camp theme was written on the camp T-shirts ‘Our ultimate goal is happiness’.

GM Cho’s seminar started off with a very thorough stretching routine, warming up both upper body and legs in preparation for what was to come.

He then led everyone through some very dynamic punching and kicking drills as well as working on everyone’s blocking techniques while demonstrating every last technique himself.

The rest of the week, the three remaining masters in attendance took turns to teach exciting and highly informative seminars.

Academy instructor Charles Boyle was invited by GM Cho to teach a seminar at camp, which was a great honour.

Aimaa summer camp 2014 was another huge success for the association.

It was an opportunity to build stronger relationships between friends old and new.

The academy would like to take this opportunity to thank Tesco for allowing the club to have a bag packing day to raise the funds to help students attend this wonderful event.

The academy would also like to thank all students, parents and grandparent for helping with the fundraising efforts throughout the year.

If anyone is interested in joining, the academy run classes five days a week, at Kerr Hall in George Sq, Greenock.

There are also classes for beginners, seniors, children, pre-school children and ladies.

All sessions are free for the first week so why not come along and give them a try?

Or visit www.inverclyde-taekwondo.com for more information.