Instructor Profile Shawn Sutton – Northern Gold Coast

PROFILE

NAME: Shawn Sutton, 2nd Degree

LOCATION: Coomera, Gold Coast

BRIEF HISTORY:

I first came across Taekwondo when I was looking for a sport to get my 10 year old daughter into, something that will keep her physically active, but also teach her discipline and respect. She had attended a Taekwon-do class with a friend and thought she might want to give it a go. I knew a friend from Soccer that ran a local school (Mr Wayne Ebert at LowerHuttTaekwondoAcademy) so I took her and two of her brothers to have a look. All three decided they wanted to give it a go, although they felt a little embarrassed because it seemed quite strange to them. I joined them up and wearing their new Doboks they got into it.

I had broken my leg playing soccer the year before and mentioned to Mr Ebert that I needed to get active again. He said “why don’t you join in”, now at 37  I thought I would look a little silly at the back in my white belt with a bunch of kids, then an ex work colleague of mine walked in with a yellow tip on a white belt. Without being disrespectful, he was a “little” bit older than me and I though well if he can do it so can I. There my journey in learning Taekwon-do began

For the first year or so I felt fairly uncoordinated but managed to work through to my Green tip, I was more enthusiastic than my kids at this point as there was something about Taekwon-do that was alluring. At the beginning of 2009 my family and I all moved to the Gold Coast for a better lifestyle and future for the family. I asked Mr Ebert who to contact about ITF Taekwon-do on the Gold Coast, he advised me to “contact Master Daher as he is a good friend of ITFNZ”, I went on to their website and found some contact details for the only club on the Gold Coast, it was a bit further from where I live than I first wanted to travel, but after a couple of months on the Coast I thought it was time to check out Mr Abdullah’s club, and I liked what I saw, a family friendly ITF style Taekwon-do school.

We joined up and I haven’t looked back since, at one stage my wife Helen and all 4 kids had joined, but the logistics and the kids other sporting activities worked against us. My 3 boys and I are the only ones currently training.

As I progressed through to my Red belt, I began looking for ways I might assist Mr Abdallah in running the club. I think it extremely important that all members assist with the running of the club where they can. I began helping to update the website and thought “why not put a new website together” I socialised this with Mr Abdallah and away we went, we also created a presence on Facebook.

I’ve also recently had the privilege of working with Master Daher to add more value to the ITF Australia/IL Shim Taekwondo Website, and  a number of other activities that Master Daher is working on as he brings the organisation back up to it heydays of the 1990s. I am also fortunate to be to train at Master Daher’s Parramatta club when in Sydney for work, and this has given me an opportunity to learn from the most senior Master in Oceania.

Inspired by the passion and drive from Master Daher and Mr Abdallah, I have opened a club at Coomera, Northern Gold Coast. My aim is to help students, young or old, be the best they can be in Taekwon-do and take that through to life in general.

In more recent times I have Graded to 2nd Degree and represented Australia in Power Test at the 2013 World Championships in Benidorm, Spain.

Kind regards,

Shawn Sutton