Combined Western Area Training @ Bath University
Tuesday the 29th saw the DJC train rolling on again, this time our Gen 1 and Gen 2 players jumped on the DJC mini bus to make the supposed short journey to Bath University for joint area training.
For those of you who don't know, because the vast amounts in terms of landmass, the Western Area is split into 2 for training with Western Area North training at Bath and Western Area South based at Tavistock and WBB. during school holidays efforts are made to combine the two groups to give the players the maximum opportunity for randori and combined training
The summer camp held at Kingsley School is also a combination of the two areas
We as usual utilised our mini bus for the event, which incidentally involves a lot of welfare work such as permission slips to be signed and mat fees have to be collected, also a DBS'd representative has to be on the trip and bus and then we have to have a representative based back in Devon for all eventualities(phone lists etc), the days of chucking a few kids in the car whilst the coach lit up a cigarette(me, Mike and Charles remember those days well) are thankfully gone. Jess spearheaded this trip as usual.
Andy took the bus driver role with Ros as on board Marshall and I followed in the trus-tea van, I zoomed away up the road and managed a stop as I was personally making such a good time that I managed a stop!
Sadly Bath is extremely busy with holiday makers and it seemed everycarvan and motorhome was heading into the city and resulted in us arriving at the Bath Uni Campus somewhat late, As Andy screeched to a halt outside the front of the building our Juniors piled out and headed to the changing rooms.
The first part of the day was a coaching session from Juergen Klinger the Head Coach at Bath (good friend of DJC,) along with Ben Fletcher, Adam Hall and other members of team Bath, this then led into some groundwork randori and just like that 2 hours had passed, prior to dinner our players were taken on a run around the athletics track which some of them seemed to enjoy more than others!
It was then time for dinner and this gave the opportunity for myself, Ros and Andy to do some networking with the players, parents and coaches from the other Western Area clubs, some of whom I had not seen in sometime, including Team Bath Players Chloe Robyns-Landricombe and Charlie Bond who I have trained with in the past
After Dinner the evening randori session took place, these sessions are hugely valuable as it gives our players the opportunity to test themselves against older higher graded players who are perhaps the same height and weight, for some of our Gen 2 players this was quite tough as they had not been involved in this sort of set up before, The randori was excellent with all of our players going with people they hadn't met before (after Ros read the riot act about only going with Drake Players) Pheebs took a knock to her ankle which kept her on the sidelines sadly and BadBoy Bogdan got thrown into a wall by Jersey from Kingsley School!(he was unhurt)
After I shamelessly snuck off at 7.30pm Andy and Ros packed up the Mini Bus and after a supper stop and an unscheduled toilet break, Andy got home just after 2am
An excellent day all round and good work done by all!