DJC @ The Brain Tumour Charity Championships
Saturday and Sunday saw DJC players make the surprisingly speedy journey to the Newport Centre in Newport, Wales, for the 2nd annual Brain Tumour Charity Championships.
This competition has been arranged in the memory of Welsh International Jamie MacDonald who sadly passed away after a brave fight against cancer. Jamie had a special connection to Plymouth as he studied at the University here and was chairman of the University Judo Club, he also trained with Mike, Ross, Charles and Kate.
The competition raises money for the Brain Tumour Charity
The weekend also had a 'Legends vs Dreamteam' event of which we had two participants, this has been given its own report so please keep an eye out for it.
DJC had 4 junior entrants and 1 senior,
Nate started the day off in a very competitive group, he is still 2 years away from being an official A-Band boy (which is the youngest category the BJA will classify a player), he had 3 fights, winning the first two of them and just missing out in the last, an amazing performance for the most travelled of our boys this year, more learning experiences and more fresh opponents faced. Nate took home a Silver
Jake who has had the luck of the rabbit who lost its lucky foot of late,saw it again as this time he went up a weight group by a measly 100 grams! making him the smallest in his weight group by some margin, this obviously was a little unexpected on his part and figuratively threw him before the competition had got under way, his first and second contests we competitive and in the second Jake really should have taken it but sadly just missed out, his third contest saw Jake back to his usual self with a dominant performance and a huge ippon throw, Jake would have more to do on this day though...
Lottie who has been DJC's most travelled girl this year by some distance was in two groups, her own weight group and then a middleweight open to accommodate a couple of other girls, Charlotte performed in her usual style dominating most of the opponents and has been working on her kuzushi, she had 6 fights in all and only lost one, she won gold in her own category and gold in the 'open' a good days work by any standard.
If Jackie Chan used the 'Drunken Master' technique then Alanna uses the 'Sleepy Master' she can walk around a contest like she hasn't got a care in the world and then after a period of sleepiness she wakes up and usually dispatches whomever she is fighting, and so it was during this competition, 4 fights in total and another gold for Alanna.
Sunday saw Kate, who had coached juniors on the Saturday make her return to competition after an injured shoulder, a little tentative she came away with a Bronze medal, Kate only has 20 points left for her Black Belt!.
So 3 Golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze in total
A big thank you to all the parents and coaches who attended and supported our players