Some people go to great lengths to hone their craft. This week, Indianapolis taekwondo instructor Garth Cooley is going all the way to Spain to perfect his form in the Korean martial art.

Cooley, 42, a three-time member of the U.S. National Taekwondo Poomsae Team, is one of two Hoosiers and nine U.S. athletes invited to train and compete at a Pamplona seminar directed by 2007 world forms champion Kytu D. Dang of Denmark.

The four-day event, co-sponsored by the Taekwondo Federations of Navara and Spain, will feature athletes from about a dozen countries, including Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Vietnam. Competitors will demonstrate their skills solo, in pairs or as a three-person team.

Dang, head master of the Hwarang Taekwondo International and a Denmark national team member, is an eight-time European champion in poomsae, a series of standardized martial arts moves and stances simulating combat.

For Cooley, a member of the three-man U.S. poomsae squad, the motivation to travel abroad is simple: Compete against and learn from the best.

A world sparring medalist in the early 1990s, Cooley will be joined by U.S. teammates Ronald Southwick of Michigan and David Turgeon of Connecticut, giving the trio some valuable face time before their trip to the third WTF World Poomsae Championships in December in Cairo, Egypt.

The trio finished seventh at last year’s world championships in Ankara, Turkey.

“The symposium will be a great opportunity for everyone to hone their skills and get valuable feedback on how to perform better internationally,” he said by e-mail this week. “We are working to improve our timing and the techniques. There is always some slight variation from person to person. Our goal is to adjust so we all accommodate one another to look as similar as possible during our synchronized performance.”

Also making the trip: Kristi George, an Indianapolis neurologist and former world collegiate sparring medalist (1990) who trains under Cooley at Korea Taekwondo Academy in Castleton. George, a former U.S. national sparring champion in 1989-90 and U.S. taekwondo team member in 1990, is competing in pairs forms with Cooley.

“Competing at this level also allows me the opportunity to bring the best possible taekwondo instruction back to my students,” said Cooley, who is putting up about $2,000 of his own money to make the trip. “I really enjoy sharing the knowledge.”