DJC @ The Devon Low Grades
Sunday the 19th of November saw the last competition for DJC for 2017(Except for who Jack is due to fight at the nationals in December)
The competition was held at the Kingsbridge Leisure centre which has been the traditional home of Devon events for the last number of years. Quayside Judo Club always help to organise the set up on the day so a big thank you to them.
The day started like most when attending a Devon competition, early start and settling down with the rest of the DJC families after we arrived
First up of the day was Erin who having shown a rich vein of form in her recent competitions continued with this trend and took Gold defeating all of the other girls in group
Leo and Louis were up next in a tough section for the slightly older lads, where one boy dominated through the whole group, both fought very well in the end they fought each other for 2nd and 3rd place with Leo taking a sliver with an excellent performance and a well earned bronze from Louis
Then came the debut of Nate, who for the last 3 years has been itching to compete but sadly his age has restricted him, now 2 weeks after turning 8 and transferring from SHO he was out of the cage, He was slightly unlucky that on the day despite being in the U34KG category he was put into a hybrid category of U36KG which meant he would be facing much larger boys, his first contest was against a tall yellow belt from Plymouth Judo Club, Nate rose to the challenge throwing his opponent with two wazari and finishing with kesa gatame, this followed in his next 3 contests including a huge ura nage throw against another yellow belt who was clearly the favourite for the group at the beginning. 4 contests 4 Ippon victories, Well done Nate hopefully this will be the first of many.
Phoebe and Georgia were up next in what is becoming a very competitive weight category, Phoebe(who is also in a rich vein of form,) handled all of her opponents with ease taking another gold to add to her Western Area Schools title that she won recently, Georgia who hasn't trained a huge amount put up a very good performance and took a well deserved bronze medal
Will fought extremely well, he has also been in very good form recently and won his first 3 contests by Ippon, he then faced a difficult opponent in the final who was using some very defensive tactics which caused Will to be penalised this continued and after a further round of penalties Will was disqualified, he was very disappointed but will learn from the experience and took a well deserved 2nd place
At the same time younger William (Pannell) was making his debut at competition and did extremely well, despite taking a big bash to the nose in his first contest he battled on and won his next contest and eventually took a bronze medal
We then had brother and sister duo of Oliver and Izzy, Oliver was in a tough group and was in some close contests eventually taking a bronze medal, Izzy had a best of 3 contest with a player from Hoshi Judo Club and came away with a gold medal.
A solid effort from our Gen2 players and lots to work on in the forthcoming year.
Next up were our senior players who haven't had many opportunities to compete this year, sadly Derek was injured in the days running up and Matt Helm had to pull out early as he has nasty chest infection which was affecting his breathing
Dan was moved up to the higher grades and had a best of 3 with a Brown belt(and BJJ Dan grade it would transpire) and put up a spirited effort and came away with a silver medal, a very successful year art competition for Dan
Dom was up in a best of three against a student from Plymouth Uni, it proved a frustrating couple of contests where Dom had some good success, holding his opponent down at one point but his lack of experience in competition proved the deciding factor, a silver on the day, knowing how Dom obsesses about defeat I imagine he is high up in the mountains of Tibet training for his next outing!
Kate was on good form taking gold in her category beating all her opponents to take Gold and then entered the Open in the hope of gaining some black belt points, which she dually did! 20 of them, could 2018 be the Kate gets her Dan grade?
Last up Mark was bumped into the heavyweight category at 93kgs against DJC's own heavyweight the 120kg James! - though a best of 3 the contest proved excellent with Mark taking the first by a throw and James the next by a hold, meaning the 3rd an final contest would decide gold, it was taken by James he gets a gold medal in his first competition for DJC
