Spirit Taekwon-Do

This is my first opportunity as the Spirit President to thank you all for choosing to be part of the Spirit schools and for supporting the establishment of the new committee.

I am privileged to be part of this Committee and look forward to working with the other members Anne Greenwood (secretary), Sarah Fisher (treasurer), Diane Burns (committee member) and of course our dedicated instructors.

Over the upcoming months it is my intention to focus on the future direction for Spirit Taekwon -do. Since Mr Kraiger started the first Spirit Taekwon-do school at Brooklyn in 1995 we have gone from strength to strength. We now have four schools, world class instructors and a growing number of outstanding students. It is now time for Spirit to look at what we want to achieve over the next couple of years. We will be pulling this information together over the next few months with significant input from our instructors so we will keep you all up-to-date on how this is progressing.

Recently I visited Hobart, Tasmania, and took the opportunity to attend one of the local Taekwon-do schools. since I started my instructors have suggested that whenever we travel we should take our dobok and train with other ITF schools. I can say first hand that it is a great idea and what I experienced in Hobart was excellent.

Before going to Hobart I searched ITF Australia and found "Southern ITF Taekwon-do". The school is run by Mr Steve Weston who is a VIth Dan black belt and the current Secretary General for ITF Taekwon-do Australia. After making initial contact with Mr Weston I was invited to attend training. In Australia the ITF model is slightly different in that each school is run as a commercial business by the instructor which differs from here in New Zealand where we tend to have Incorporated Societies that over see the operational component.

There are now more ways to keep completely up to date with what is happening at Spirit Taekwon-Do.  Whether you are savvy with social media, or prefer to stick to email, you can now receive automatic updates from Spirit whenever anything is added to the News or Upcoming Events Section.

Twitter allows you to receive very short updates, with links back to the main website. You can even set it to send you automatic updates via text message simply by texting follow SpiritNetNz to 8987, and following a few simple steps.

We now have a Facebook page, which will also receive feeds from the main website. This has been set up so that anyone can contribute once becoming a fan, so it has the potential to become a great online meeting place for the group. There's a bit of work to go on this one, so if anybody has the desire to help out by becoming an admin on the page then please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

And finally for those of us who haven't quite caught up with Twitter and Facebook, you can now sign up to receive automatic updates via email whenever content is added. The only problem with email updates is that you won't receive any notification if an item is updated (eg a venue or time added to an upcoming event), but all you have to do is check the Website for the latest details anyway. Emails are only sent out once per day, and only if there has been content added.

So... to stay informed... click one of the icons above right now (or text follow SpiritNetNz to 8987).

All of this is experimental, so if you spot anything not working well, or ways things can be improved then please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Spirit Taekwon-Do Group has an arrangement with Sapius, a Wellington-based supplier of ITF Taekwon-Do doboks, to supply doboks to Spirit members. Although you are free to choose any ITF-approved dobok supplier, we believe that the quality and fit of the Sapius doboks make them a very good choice.

Also, if you order a Sapius dobok through Spirit you will have it delivered to you free of charge, which is a great saving. Spirit will also be keeping a small selection in stock.

These are quality doboks, and great to wear! In particular the shoulder design means that the dobok fits really well and doesn't ride up during training.

There is now a new menu item on the webpage called "Doboks". Take a look!