Smart/MVP attracts more than 800 jins nationwide

MANILA, Philippines – Around 800 taekwondo practitioners will compete in three different events in the 2016 SMART/MVP Sports Foundation, PLDT Home Ultera National CPJ (Carlos Palanca Jr.) and Kukkiwon Cup championships on Sunday, Feb. 7 at the Cuneta Astrodome.

The country’s best jins including Francis Aaron Agojo, Samuel Thomas Morrison Harper, Ronna Ilao, Pauline Lopez and Benjamin Keith Sembrano will vie for slots on the national team in the kyorugi (free sparring) competition.

Other entries will see action in the two other events – poomsae, which means forms, and kyukpa, which means “breaking”.

Kyorugi will feature Senior (those 18 years old and above), Junior (15-17 years old, and Cadet (12-14 years old) fighters, while poomsae campaigners will be divided into three divisions – individual, team and pair – with 13 categories, namely, Cadet (12-14 years old), Junior (15-17), 1st Senior 1-A (18-24), Senior 1-B (25-30), Senior 2 (31-40), Master (41 and above), Cadet Pair, Junior Pair, Senior Pair, Cadet team, Junior team, 1st team and 2nd team.

Kyukpa will feature two events – hand breaking and foot breaking.  Hand breaking will have two techniques – fist breaking, where one has to break the target with a straight down punch and knife hand breaking while foot breaking has three kinds of techniques: high jumping front kick breaking, flying side kick breaking over obstacles and acrobatic breaking.