Choi Kwang-Do was started in Shetland in March 2001 by Mr Ronnie Simpson (3rd Dan), who was working at the Sullom Voe Oil Terminal.
The first classes were held in the Club Room of the Brae Hall and were attended by Mr Colin Johnston, Mr Alan Thomason, Mrs Margaret Sandison and Mrs Shamim Robertson. The first junior pupils to join were Callum and Stephanie Mills and Sara Macgregor. These junior students achieved 1st Dan status in March 2005.
Mr Simpson then opened classes in Lerwick at the Clickimin Leisure Centre and the members started to grow.
When Mr Simpson left Shetland in 2003 the running of the club was handed over to Mr Johnston as all students wanted to carry on practising and learning Choi. Since then the club has grown and now boasts over 100 active members, with classes in Brae, Lerwick, Yell and Scalloway.
Mr & Mrs Simpson travelled to Shetland for the gradings every 2 months until work commitments took them both over to America. Since then Mr and Mrs MacArthur and Mr Jay have travelled up to Shetland for the gradings and to run classes.
A group of shetland students made their first memorable trip to Headquarters in Atlanta in March 2005, where they were made to feel most welcome by all the students and instructors, especially Master Pereira. Mr and Mrs Johnston visited Atlanta again in March 2007 for the 20th Anniversary of Choi Kwang Do and met students from all over the world.
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Mr Simpson first started Choi in 1989. He and his wife Lynda were looking for some exercise and a leisure activity they could share. Mr Simpson had previously practiced a couple of other styles but never graded and knew Lynda would not take to the "harder" competitive styles. When they first started there were about 12 in the class, nobody more than a couple of belts above them. At that time the standard was a minimum of 3 months between gradings, and the only tag belts were purple, red and brown, which had one and two black tags. A student was expected to wait at least 6 months between brown 2 tag and Bo-Dan, which was a sort of provisional black belt on the way to 1st Dan. At the time, Assistant Instructor, started at Green Belt, when you could be asked to take the stretch, do the introductory lesson and help junior students.
Mr & Mrs Simpson first visited Atlanta when they were green belts. They had never seen a Demo team before and students performing purple senior pattern, synchronized, to the music of "Another one bites the dust" is still clear in their minds. They trained really hard with the instructors and were nervous when Dojunim came to take the class personally.
After a couple of years they reached Bo-Dan, which meant they were qualified to open a school of their own, so they opened in the Warehouse in Aberdeen. Lynda had a good morning class for post office night shift workers at 8 in the morning! From there Mr Simpson moved on to running Holburn & Westhill and Mrs Simpson ran Newtonhill, Inverurie and Bridge of Don schools. When Mr Simpson came to Shetland to work, Mrs Mackie and Mr Longmire jointly took over Westhill and Mrs Simpson took on Holburn. Newtonhill and Bridge of Don went from strength to strength and eventually they passed to Mr and Mrs MacArthur and Mr Bruce. When Mrs Simpson left Holburn, she passed it on to Mr Paul Higgens.
While on a business trip to India, Mr Simpson made contact with Jugna Nandu. From his second night there, he was invited to teach every night after work, sometimes more than one class. Mr Simpson did not let communication problems worry him and just performed the technique and counted as they did it with him. Even despite the poverty, there were so many people who really enjoyed Choi training, classes were up to one hundred. Mr Simpson still keeps in touch with Junga and his assistant Smeeta.
We would like to say a big Pil Sung to Mr & Mrs Simpson for introducing and teaching us this martial art.
If you would like to come along, training takes place every night of the week, see Class Times for details.