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Pyle Tang Soo Do Students Kick for Sport Relief

Some people spent Sunday March 16th 2008 recovering from the Welsh Rugby team’s grand slam victory.

Some of us however travelled down to Margam Park to join students from “Master Hellings’ Family Martial Arts at Pyle” and had a fun time getting plastered there instead.

The ten students who were brave enough to turn up aimed to run the Margam mile together as Team Tang Soo Do and help raise money for Sport Relief. While it would have been easy for us to have had a sponsored event in class, we chose to challenge ourselves in a different way, outside of our comfort zone and in all probability in the rain. As it turned out, we also had the added benefit of getting plastered in mud!

The team of students all aged 6-16 years were led by Mr Gareth Powell and Mrs Siân Moran. Pyle students Jordan Lee, Jack Collins, Carley Pugh and Gemma Henson were joined by Robert, Gareth and Morgan Abraham and Richard Morgan from Aberdare and Stacey Gregory from Llantrisant TSD.

The forecast was for a very wet weekend. Everyone was running in their Do Bok and we had been asked to do a 10 minute demonstration at the start, so we were expecting to get soaked. Luckily, it was dry when we arrived, but the ground was very wet and very, very muddy. We did our own quick warm up in which mud flew everywhere when we started kicking. We proceeded with our demo, watched by the Lord Mayor, finishing off with a short session of Kyuk Pa (breaking) by Mr Powell, Robert Abraham, Stacey Gregory, Richard Morgan and Mrs Moran.

We then joined everyone else for the official warm-up led by PACE, and set off last, after a Mexican Wave and a quick photo.

Mr Powell ran the whole mile barefoot over chippings, which didn’t stop him keeping up with the younger students. First to finish was Gareth Abraham, followed by Jordan Lee, with others finishing at intervals cheering their team home. Everyone enjoyed themselves so much doing the run and in getting plastered in mud, that they wanted to do the same thing again next year.

Mr Powell and Mrs Moran would like to thank all the students who turned up and ran the mile for Sport Relief. The money raised will help to change the lives of disadvantaged groups in the poorest communities in Britain and around the world.

Thank you to all the parents who brought their children or gave others a lift to the event, for helping to take photos and to hold blocks. A special thank you too, to all the mums, for having to wash the mud off the Do Boks. I’m sure it will come off!