Pilsung Taekwondo have a club motto that reads: ‘Victory through Perseverance’, and Club Instructor Simon Turton has embodied that mantra more than most during his Taekwondo journey.
The Sheffield native woke up on Monday morning having achieved 6th Dan status at the UK Kukkiwon Office High Dan Promotion Test on Sunday; a landmark achievement that was the culmination of 28 years of dedication to our Martial Art.
But Simon’s journey to reaching that milestone has been far from straightforward over the past three years, with a life-changing injury at work seeing him hospitalised and unable to work or train for weeks on end.
Having achieved his 5th Dan in 2018, Simon would have been eligible to attempt his 6th Dan grading in 2023. Instead, he found himself fighting a very different battle, one that he won through courage, resilience, and dedication.
Working as a roofer, Simon was carrying out repairs to some guttering when a ladder slipped beneath him, sending him falling to the ground. Just like that, his life would change forever.
Talking of that fateful day, Simon explains: “I’ve done it plenty of times before, but I was using a reciprocating saw, and I think that vibrated the bottom of the ladder off the chock it was on. So it slipped outwards and it dropped me around 20 feet down the front of the house.
“I managed to get one foot down onto the ground and I went over sideways, so my arm hit the floor and then my head hit my arm. I think the fact that my head hit my arm probably saved my life.
“I lay there for a few seconds, then I started to move and I saw my arm and at that point I knew I was definitely not okay.”
The extent of the injuries was severe. Simon fractured both bones in his left forearm, suffered multiple fractures to his wrist, dislocated his elbow, fractured his skull, eye socket and sinus, and required major reconstructive surgery to the broken arm.
On the way to the hospital, the reality of the situation started kicking in.
“As I was going to hospital, I started going into shock. I started shivering and dithering. And so I was having to use breathing techniques to try and calm myself down.
“I think part of that came from a competition background of controlling that panic response. I spent that journey wondering what was going to happen to my arm.”
“They metal-plated it back together the day after. They had to open my arm up to carry out the operation and take a skin graft off my leg to cover the wound from the surgery.”
Despite spending a week in hospital and being warned by medical professionals that there could be no guarantee over how much movement he would regain, Simon approached his recovery with the same mindset that had defined his Martial Arts career.
“I spent the following week in hospital. I had the surgery on the Thursday. And then on the Friday morning, I managed to walk down the corridor of the ward. It hurt. But I managed to do it.
“I put a lot of it down to being strong, fit, and healthy. And Taekwondo over all these years has contributed to a lot of that.
“I spoke to the surgeons and the doctors before my operation, and everybody said, this is a huge injury, and we can’t guarantee the amount of mobility that you’re going to get back in your arm.”
“I had no clue what was going to happen, and I was thinking: ‘what am I going to do if I can’t get back to where I was?’. I’ll be honest, I didn’t come up with any answers at the time.”
The first step of recovery was teaching himself how to use his fingers and his hand again. Those basic movements that we all take for granted every minute of our lives were now training exercises in the attempt to return to normality.
“At the start of that week I had zero mobility in my hand. So I sat doing exercises, putting my thumb to my fingertips. And when I first started doing it, I kept missing. It was very strange. It was like having a new hand.
“Obviously I wasn’t working. So I basically made it my job to get better and to do the physio, improve the motion.
“I had to have that mindset. You have to carry on, even if it is hurting, to make that progress. Again, I think part of that comes back to Martial Arts as well.
“I had a goal to get better and get back to what I was doing before: coaching Taekwondo and doing the Taekwondo myself.”
“The care I received was brilliant. The NHS were awesome and really took care of me! By far the biggest factor in my support was my wife Gill who went into overdrive and took care of me and everything at home, she’s been incredible.”
“On the club front for the weeks I was out, club coaches Steph Windmill and Luke Blackburn, with John Hamilton’s assistance covered everything. They heard the news and just messaged me to say they’ll take care of the classes and I needed to focus on recovering. So, they were amazing in that respect.”
Simon made rehabilitation his full-time focus, and remarkably, he returned to coaching just weeks after the accident.
“I went back to coaching around four weeks after the accident, I could sit at the front of a class and give instructions. I’d ask the black belts to demonstrate techniques and drills, The club really pulled together on that point as well, to just keep things moving and keep things ticking over.
“The buy-in that we get in from the members of the club and the parents is really strong, and it’s something that I am quite proud of. It is a very strong community within the club.
After six weeks in a cast and then around 60 follow-up appointments in the months afterwards, Simon gradually returned to physical activity before eventually stepping back onto the mats three months after the accident. With a lot of the strength gone from his left side, visits to the gym also became a regularity to get back to full strength.
With that 6th Dan milestone still acting as the ultimate goal in the road to recovery, the journey back was one that required determination and commitment, and that was aided by the support he received from the British Taekwondo community.
Training in Manchester at the Regional Poomsae Performance Sessions, alongside Master Mike McKenzie at Quest Taekwondo in Penistone and Loughton Taekwondo’s Master Chan Sau in London, Simon slowly started to turn those dreams of his next grading into reality.
Alongside him every step of the way he also had fellow Pilsung instructor Master Craig Wallace, 7th Dan, someone who had been there from the day Simon had walked through the door of the club as a fellow student all those years ago.
“I’ve practised and practised for this grading, and I’ve done a lot of work with Craig as well.”
“He’s helped me to work on the fine detail adjustments on the Poomsae side of things, and just giving me honest feedback and really good guidance in terms of how things look and how to put an extra snap into some techniques.
“Craig’s been pretty instrumental and influential in terms of helping me along the way. I think he was probably a black belt when I joined. So he’s been at Pilsung from day one for me and been a constant in my Taekwondo journey.”
Three years after that life-changing day, Simon was ready to take to the mats and take the next step in his Taekwondo journey. Having been through so much to get to that point, nothing was going to stand in his way when it came to achieving 6th Dan status.
The preparation culminated in a busy weekend. On Saturday, Simon was coaching at his club and then examining at the Quest Taekwondo Dan Grading, where several Pilsung students and instructors successfully achieved new Dan grades.
Less than 24 hours later, it was his turn to step onto the floor.
“I was a bit nervous on the Saturday evening, I was thinking: ‘What am I doing? Why am I doing this to myself?’
“But on the day, once I got on the floor and once I got moving, I just got into my groove. I was pretty happy once I got on the floor and got going.”
“Part of being a martial artist, and especially once you get to your Dan grades, is being able to perform under those circumstances, and it almost becomes part and parcel of what you are and what you’re doing.
“I’ve come from where I was after my accident, and I’ve done all this hard work to get to here, so I was going to make sure that I passed. It was a little bit of extra pressure, but it’s from a good place.”
For someone who first discovered Taekwondo in the late 1990s and has continued the Pilsung legacy started by his former instructor Master Andrew Hill, achieving 6th Dan is a fitting recognition of decades of commitment, service and perseverance.
Yet for Simon, the achievement is made even more meaningful by everything it took to get there. That appreciation of his journey, and the resilience he has shown to get to this point was evident as the celebratory messages came through on Sunday evening, with the British Taekwondo community all eager to celebrate his achievement.
“The response that I’ve had from the club and also from the wider Taekwondo community, people that I know all over the country, I’ve been pretty blown away by it. It’s been a really lovely thing to happen.”
“It does feel a little bit surreal today. But despite all the nerves a couple of days ago, I’m really, really pleased that I’ve done it and that I’ve got the result that I did.”
There may have been times when he didn’t think it could happen, when the pain of rehabilitation was difficult to bear, but for a man whose club motto is ‘Victory through Perseverance’, there could hardly be a more fitting ending to the story.
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