Master Rua Kaiou
Master Rua Kaiou, 7th Degree has been nominated in the Outstanding Lifetime Contribution category of the ITF Hall Of Fame (Australasia).
Master Kaiou has over 40 years of ITF experience and has trained and been promoted by the who’s who of ITF Taekwon-Do – Grandmaster Young Ku Yun (1st Deg), Mr Maorikava Tere (2nd Deg), Grandmaster Park Jung Tae (3rd Deg), Gen Choi Hong Hi (4th Deg), Grandmaster Choi Jung Hwa (5th Deg), Senior Grandmaster Leong Wai Meng (6th Deg) and VII DAN Professor Chang Ung (7th Deg).
For many years Master Rua Kaiou was very active and successful on the ITF World Championships and International tournament circuit, having competed in 1990 ITF World Championships (Montreal, Canada), 1994 ITF World Championships (Kuala Terenganu, Malaysia).
He also was heavily involved as an Umpire and Coach at several other major events in Regina, Canada (1996), St Petersburg, Russia (1997), Thessolanoki, Greece (1998), Buenos Aires, Argentina (1999), Osaka, Japan (2000), Martial Arts Games, Pyongyang, North Korea (2000) , Rimini, Italy (2001), Genting Highlands, Malaysia (2003), Sunshine Coast, Australia (2005), Sofia, Bulgaria (2006) and Bled, Slovenia (2008).
Domestically Master Kaiou won many New Zealand championships, as well as Australasian, South Pacific and Oceana Championships. He added the WKA Kickboxing world Title to his list of achievements along the way.
He also oversaw ITF in the Cook Islands for a numbers of years, and ran a very successful school South Auckland Taekwon-Do, prior to moving to Australia.
Although already well known internationally via his tournament exploits, Master Kaiou’s profile was largely boosted by his participation in the ITF Legacy CD-Rom collection, having been chosen by the Founder General Choi Hong Hi, to perform some of the more difficult components on the program, due to his athleticism and fine technique.
Today Master Rua Kaiou resides in Melbourne, as a member of United ITF Taekwon-Do Australia Inc.
