In April 2001, I went to a Tae Kwon Do seminar in Toronto.  There was a large group of people that went from my club, we rented two SUV's, and we left the Sault on a friday morning around 7 AM.  The Drive down was long but it wasn't too bad because I had two of my good friends Anthony Celli, and Donny Beith with me in one of the vehicles.  My dad, who is also in the martial arts was driving our vehicle, I remember  Anthony bugging the hell out of my dad, either he was driving too slow, or he didn't like the radio station that was playing.  My dad also like to make fun of Anthony, he would tease him about his hair or call him a "Momma's boy".  Donny on the other hand slept almost the whole way down,  I've never seen someone sleep so much in my life.
    As we got to Toronto I was overwhelmed with the size of the city.  We had to find our Grand Master's Do-jang which was in china town, because that was where we were going to sleep for the weekend.  This was the second time we got to meet the Grand Master.  The first time was when we tested for our black belt, this time meeting him was definitely better than the first, because we got to know him better.  Later on that day we went to the three day seminar held by General Choi, who was the founder of modern day Tae Kwon Do.  At the first day of the seminar we watched people from all over the world perform for General Choi.  One of the most impressive things was watching my Grand Master perform some take downs and wrist locks.  Another impressive thing was watching two of the masters from my Grand Master's school do some patterns.  After the demonstrations General Choi talked about Tae Kwon Do to everyone, and he ask some people so stand up and answer some questions that he ask.  After the first day of the seminar ended we went back to the Grand Masters Do-jang, and ordered food.  After we ate Grand Master Son talk to us for awhile then he let us go out on the streets of Toronto.  One of his students took Anthony, Donny, Lucas, and myself out around china town, then we wondered into down town Toronto.  We didn't get back until about 2 in the morning, we tried sleeping but there was a dance club right beside the do-jang and all we heard was really loud music until about 3 in the morning.  The Next morning we woke up early and headed off to the seminar.
    At the seminar we listen to General Choi talk for a while then everyone got up and did patterns in a big group.  It was interesting to see the difference between our styles.  General Choi which was ITF and my style which was Royal Tae Kwon Do.  The main difference between the two was in the patterns, the ITF had a large bounce behind every movement and they had one rhythm the whole time.  Where as in Royal Tae Kwon Do style there is no large bounce, and for every pattern there's a different rhythm to make it more realistic.  After each pattern General Choi Talk about some corrections, and some meanings behind some of the movements.  This basically took the whole day to go through a lot but not all of the patterns.  That night there was a banquet held, at the banquet everyone got a certificate signed and approved by General Choi, when we received our certificate we got to shake his hand.  After the banquet was done we went back to the Grand Masters Do-jang.  He talked to us about he seminar for a bit, then we went out wondering around Toronto again.  The next day the seminar continued but we had a choice to go to the seminar for the last day, or have a lesson by our Grand Master on take downs and wrist locks.  We chose to stay with our Grand Master, he showed us a lot of techniques, he demonstrated on us first then we got to try it out with each other.  Some of the moves put a lot of pressure and pain in the wrist.  Being demonstrated on by Grand Master Son was great, he was so fast, you would blink and when you opened your eyes you would be on the ground.  After he showed us a lot of great moves he talked to us about ki energy, and gave some demonstrations which were great to see.  After that we packed up and started our way back to the Sault. We got back in the city around 10:30 PM, I can honestly say that it was an experience I would never forget.