From club level right through to the top of GBTSDA families are an important part of Tang Soo Do life. From the parent bringing their child to class, the partner supporting their loved ones at a competition or grading through to whole families training together, family involvement is engrained in the association.
From the top, Grandmaster Khan’s wife and daughters are senior and key masters within the association. Many masters and instructors are family teams, sometimes married, sometimes siblings. It’s not unusual at gradings to be able to spot families attending together, often grading for the same grades.
Often it starts with a single family member starting, then others join in. Parents realism they can be part of what their children are doing instead of just being a taxi, sibling dragged along getting involved, their are many ways others get involved.
At Ely & Witchford Tang Soo Do it is exactly the same, Masters G & R Russell trained together, their three children trained with them to Dan level, one is still very active in the club and association at 3rd Dan. Many of the students over the years have been family groups from siblings or parent/child pairings through to whole families of five all training together.
So here we are going to highlight some of the families, past and present, who have trained together in Tang Soo Do.
The Rutherfords
The Rutherfords involvement with Tang Soo Do began in 2016 when Liam started as a tiny tiger aged 6. This continued until 2017 when Liam moved up to the senior class and began preparting for his first grading in September.
By the end of 2017, while watching her younger brother train, Emily began to copy him from the sidelines. Stuart was also looking for something new to do for fitness so together they decided to join Liam in the new year. So January 2018 saw Emily & Stuart join the back line of the class. Not to be left out Aidan also joined tiny tigers.
2019 saw Aidan move up to the senior class and begin grading, Paula also joined.
The grading of March 2020 saw Liam move to Red-Tag, Aidan to Green-Tag and Paula to Green, Emily and Stuart had already graded to Red the December before. This grading would be the last for a while, occuring two weeks before the national Covid lockdown. Training moved online with sporadic in-class training when allowed.
Once training resumed it would take until September 2021 before gradings properly resumed which saw Liam grade to Cho Dan Do and Emily and Stuart to Red-Tag.
2001 also saw the return to competition with the Regional Championships in Wales where Liam, Emily and Stuart picked up five trophies between them, one 1st, two 2nds and two 3rds.
In October 2022 Liam tested for his 1st Dan black belt, almost exactly five years since moving to the senior class. He was presented with his belt in February 2023. Emily and Stuart, having graded side-by-side through all the gup grades tested for their 1st Dan black belts in August 2023 and were presented in January 2024.
Aidan also completed his final gup grading in June 2024 to become a Cho Dan Bo, also achieving the most improved award.
