Member Stories: Master Lenny Too
I started Taekwondo training in January 1984 with my older brother, younger sister and nephew. What initially got us interested in martial arts was watching Bruce Lee movies rented from the video store.
We chose to attend Rhee Tae Kwon Do as there was a branch close to us in Nundah. Leon McQuarie was the instructor. The members in the branch were all adults, there were only a couple of other children. Classes were 90mins of hard training.
My first grading was an experience in itself. There were about 4 groups of 30 white belts grading and there were crowds of people waiting to grade with lots of instructors around the hall. Grading results weren’t available the next training night like it is now and we had to wait up to 2 weeks for them.
I remember Chief Instructor Trevor coming down one night to the Nundah branch. His 2nd Dan belt was grey and falling apart. He helped fix my 8th Kup pattern.
After some time at training, Leon left as an instructor and Rodney Kirwan took over the branch.
I was progressing well through my belts until 1st Kup at the age of 13. Due to my size and age I wasn’t able to grade any time soon, but that was OK. In the mean time, I was still training and attending Saturday 1st Kup training at Charlotte St in the city.
These classes were some of the hardest training I’ve ever experienced. We had to endure running up and down the stairs and lots of sparring. I remember black belts staying back after their training session to spar us. The first time I remember them staying back, I sparred Instructor Noel who punched me in the face at least 3 times as soon as we started. It sounds harsh but we knew it was martial art training so we accepted it and learned how to avoid being in the wrong place.
I have lots of memories from these training sessions. Another one I can’t forget is that, when attempting knife hand strike I couldn’t even break one board after months of trying. Then one day, Chief Instructure Trevor got me up to attempt 2 boards and told me in front of the class that if I didn’t break them he would break my nose. I ended up breaking them on the first attempt as I think he would have done it back then.
1st Kup training was probably the most influential period of my training and I constantly refer to it when training 1st Kups.
When it was time to grade for black belt, I failed on 2 attempts and successful on the third attempt in March 1988. My first attempt was with a group of about 12-16 and the majority of us failed. It was disappointing to fail but looking back at it, I would rate myself substandard.
After reaching 1st Dan, I stayed with Instructor Rodney becoming his Assistant Instructor at Nundah. When the branch closed down, we started a branch at Everton Hills Vital Gym. During these years Rodney was training for his 2nd Dan grading. He was injured during a weekend training session and his knee wasn’t able to cope with the jumping kicks required for the grading. He eventually stopped training and the branch closed down. From there I moved over to Stafford and trained with Instructor Michael Hoffman who was also an excellent practitioner.
I eventually became the instructor at Stafford as Michael left. The branch didn’t have a lot of regular students but did fluctuate at times with large numbers, which made training more enjoyable as it filled the large hall. It was around 1995 that I moved across to Arana Hills to take over from Instructor Shane McNish as he was moving to the Albany Creek branch. I decided to move branches at this time also, so my assistant could have the opportunity to become and Instructor.
Shane and I graded at the same time for 2nd Dan in 1996 and for 3rd Dan in 2000. My 4th Dan grading in 2014 and 5th Dan in 2021. Even though Shane doesn’t train anymore, we have remain friends for 30+ years. We’ve always spent Christmas and New Years together and remain as close as we did when we were both training.
Our Taekwondo training has generally stayed the same since I first started. We still practice the basics, patterns, step sparring and sparring.
During my time as an instructor, I have experienced the highs and lows of teaching from having students pass and fail at gradings, but I’ve always tried to have them physically prepared for the gradings. I believe I’ve become better at instructing, understanding that not all students learn the same way. I will continue to evolve and improve the way I teach as long as I’m teaching and hope to pass this on to my assistants, and I hope they will improve on this.
I have benefitted a lot from my time from training. I never thought I would have lasted as long as I have. I only aimed achieve 2nd Dan after black belt but I’m glad I’ve stayed on. I have had a lot of assistant instructors over the years, some from when they were still children becoming adults like Alex, who doesn’t train any more and David who has recently had his own child. He still comes to training when he can and has been with me for over 20 years. My current instructors Chris, Brad and Charlotte are very good instructors.
I hope to continue to pass on my knowledge to students and my instructors for as long as I can.
—Master Lenny Too
