Interview with GM Paul Donnelly

Paul Donnelly started training in TKD in 1973 at Warwick club under instructor Bob Howe aged 17 , Paul was a natural and it was like watching a mirror image of his instructor Bob Howe when he was kicking & performing patterns, Paul competed regularly at green belt & blue& red winning lots of competitions and when he got to black belt he went straight into the National team, all the way through he was competing in the same divisions as Ron Sergiew, Kenny Walton, & Bob Sergiew so a tough time to make your mark but Paul did.But this feature is not about Paul’s competitive career it’s about a little bit of TKD history which he was part of, because of his superb technical ability Paul was invited by General Choi in 1980 to undertake a 3 week tour of North Korea as part of the ITF world Master demonstration team to introduce ITF Taekwondo to the people of North Korea for the first time. On the 15th of September 1980 Paul and Master Ki Ha Rhee who was chief instructor of the UKTA flew from Heathrow airport to Sweden to meet up with General Choi and the rest of the Masters, Paul was a 3rd dan at this time and was honoured to have been asked to go on the tour, some of the other members of the group were, Park Jung Tae ,Lim Won Sup ,Kim Jung Sun , Master Han , Charles Sereff ,Choi Jung Hwa , Michael McCormack , Kresha Broussa ,Demitrius Cosmoglu, from Sweden the group flew to Moscow where Paul was asked to demonstrate for General Choi and the North Korean embassy officials, after sightseeing in Moscow the next day taking photos in red square, the group flew to Pyong Yang in North Korea where they were greeted by hundreds of schoolchildren and a full blown orchestra. The group gave demonstrations across North Korea in huge stadiums all making national headlines, the biggest one was in Pyong Yang where they were watched by a crowd of 15,000 ,Paul’s role was decided by General Choi he had to perform high jumping reverse turning kick, twist kick , one step sparring with Park Jung Tae team pattern, and free sparring with Master Han and Kresha Brussa .Paul said it was a real eye opener,they were well looked after, taken all over the country to the most prestigious events and historical sights , and diverse events such as a couple of propaganda films as well as an opera and children’s school shows , they were given money to buy things from the embassy to bring home along with a professional photograph album, newspapers and gifts , Paul said the country was beautiful, and we had minders every where we went who were at our beckon and call , Paul said when they left the city’s and went into the countryside to visit mountains and beauty spots he could not help but notice that the people looked malnourished, and whenever they asked awkward questions about there lifestyle the subject was quickly changed, all the children were dressed the same and they walked everywhere crocodile style. Just before Paul left for North Korea he received a phone call from the foreign office pointing out that we didn’t have an embassy out there so if anything went wrong he would be on his own! Paul was also offered a 4th dan grading when he was on the tour but turned it down because he had not done his time and did not want to jump a grade above his peers and training partners.