Valery Ten, 1966–2022
“Taekwondo makes us better!”
Valery Ten was Director of the Taekwondo WT Association of the Kyrgyz Republic, a 6th dan black belt, an international Taekwondo WT referee and head coach of the national Taekwondo WT team of Kyrgyzstan in 2018–2021.
Valery Vissarionovich Ten was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and was keen on sport from early childhood. He held a 6th dan black belt in Taekwondo WT, was a Master of Sport of International Class of the Kyrgyz Republic and an international-category referee, and served as Director of the Taekwondo WT Association and head of the “Olymp” Taekwondo WT centre in Bishkek.
It is important not only to train a champion, but also to raise a good person!
There were two children in the family: Valery and his younger brother Vladislav. In the summer of 2002, at his younger brother’s invitation, Valery Ten came to Bishkek. He liked Kyrgyzstan so much that he stayed.
He rented a gym at School No. 17 in the Fourth Microdistrict and enrolled his first group of children.
To get the gym going I charged a purely symbolic fee and trained every day. A few months later the question of buying uniforms and grading for coloured belts came up.
I set out to work officially in Bishkek, because one of the tenets of taekwondo is to be law-abiding and to observe established order and rules, in life as in sport.
Through my brother’s acquaintances I got in touch with representatives of the Taekwondo WTF Association of Kyrgyzstan. I came to the office, and they were very surprised that a coach from Uzbekistan was working in Bishkek with a group of thirty athletes. That day I met Aleksei Filippovich Pak, who headed our Association then, just as he does now. That was the beginning of our many years of cooperation.
The Association gave me material and technical support, and my athletes were graded for coloured belts.
There are no incapable students — all children are able and talented. A coach’s task is to spot the potential in one or several of dozens of boys and girls, teach them the basics of technique and create the conditions for that potential to unfold. The last part is the hardest: creating the conditions for the athlete.
Many years ago I concluded that the most important thing for a coach is not only to train a champion but, no less importantly, to raise a good person and citizen in the full sense of the word.
— from an interview by Kseniya Tolkaneva for the newspaper “Ilchi” of the Public Association of Koreans of Kyrgyzstan
The goal: to create a Kyrgyz school of taekwondo
My main task, together with my fellow coaches, students and like-minded people, is to create a Kyrgyz school of taekwondo that is recognisable, modern, competitive and viable. Above all, there must be continuity between generations. Not a single medal — even an Olympic one — once every ten years, but, far more importantly, predictable, stable, high results. And, of course, we need Olympic medals too!
It is very hard, practically impossible, to develop a sport — let alone an Olympic one — without a state programme of development, support and funding. My fellow coaches of the Taekwondo WT Association of the Kyrgyz Republic and I are doing everything we can.
Even if international trips sometimes bring us no medals, we try to travel abroad at least once or twice a year for competitions or training camps so that our athletes gain experience. The state helps us, but for the most part these trips are paid for from the Association’s own funds and resources.
Like many of my colleagues, I am doing everything within my modest abilities to make my dream come true, so that taekwondo in Kyrgyzstan takes the “rightful” place it deserves as an Olympic sport.
— from an interview by Kseniya Tolkaneva for the newspaper “Ilchi” of the Public Association of Koreans of Kyrgyzstan