Drake volunteers take Time Keeping Official course and Ros passes her Contest Recorder exam

After the euphoria of the BJA awards last weekend, it was back to the hard graft this weekend. With the Devon Low Grades forming the practical part of the course, a crack team of DJC Committee Members, parents and older judoka, undertook a short theory session on the intracacies of contest Time Keeping. For extra credit, our own National Champ, Ros, had an extra couple of hours of intensive learning to get her on her way towards the Contest Recorder qualification.

Why did we do this? It’s all part of the master plan …. get the team qualified and then we can have our very own competition. Not a “festival” or “demonstration” event, like the InterClubs (very valid though they are), but a proper, BJA sanctioned competition. Details are yet to be worked through, but it’s on the radar for a full on DJC comp in 2018 to be held at the LifeCentre. Watch this space.

Back to today’s lesson. For some, it was a trip down memory lane (dim and distant in some cases, yesterday for the kids!). Sitting on benches in front of teacher – the very welcome Andy and Chris who made special effort to pop in and see us on their way to oversee the Low Grades tomorrow. With the Marjons gym providing difficult acoustics, we muddled though, working our way around the timer functions and playing with the kit that will be in use at the Low Grades.

Andy made special effort to give yours truly a bit of a heads up on the JudoShiai programme that I’ve been playing with. The programme’s timer is the one that we have used at the InterClubs and I;ve now got a few shortcuts to work with.

All in all, a fascinating insight into competition organisation from one of the best teams in the business. Nothing less would be appropriate for Drake, of course. Time (pun intended) to put this all into practice at the Low Grades and then under our own steam at the InterClub.

Bring it on.

Some of the volunteers were able to put their theory into practice at the low grade championships at Kingsbridge, we also learnt that Ros scored an impressive 148 and a half out of a possible 150 on Competition Recorder exam, a special mention from me concerning Kieron and Ethan both of whom are our first juniors to become officials, another proud moment for myself and DJC