Hungary 2008 by Jim Clements

During the summer of 2008 7 members of The University of Birmingham Taekwondo journeyed to Budapest for a 2 week holiday, half of which involved some serious Taekwondo training.

After an uneventful flight over and a 2 hour stand off with the Budapest Transport Mafia, we arrived at our hostel and settled in. We spent the first few days of the trip seeing the sights and relaxing. Good quality, cheap food was in abundance and we even found some decent beers! The weather was fantastic and Andy (our unofficial guide) found plenty of activities to keep us entertained. These included visiting spas, safari parks and a bit of wakeboarding. Day by day our group expanded as more British fighters arrived in preparation for the training camp.

On our day of departure for the camp the entire group boarded a bus for the 2 hour journey to our home for the next few days. After arriving and unpacking it was time for our first training session. This consisted of fitness & taekwondo and left pretty much everyone shattered but in high spirits. The rest of the training camp ran to a schedule of:

Early morning: Fitness training

Breakfast

Mid day: Technical training

Lunch

Social time

Evening: Sparring training (tough but great fun!)

Evening meal

Social activities

The training, though tiring, was excellent; with 5 Masters each taking charge of different grades at different times. Everyone present had a great attitude and there was lots of encouragement when things got tough. Numerous other entertaining activities were organised to keep us busy; including an opportunity for Team Birmingham to show off our skipping excellence and superb tug of war technique. There was even a bar selling alcohol in the evenings!

By the end of the training camp most people were sad to be leaving, but happy to be heading back to Budapest for some leisure time. With training now over, the emphasis was on socialising and winding down. Meals at restaurants were arranged including one fantastic ‘All you can eat AND drink’ buffet and several bars & clubs were visited. A few members of the group also went to the Sziget Festival, a huge music festival held on an island on the river with acts such as Justice, The Killers, Jamiroquai and Kaiser Chiefs on the bill.

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable 2 weeks. The training was high quality, there was plenty of time for socialising and everyone made new friends (except Waseem!~ Obviously) I would recommend future trips to anyone serious about improving their taekwondo or keen on seeing some of Hungary and sampling the food.