The morning after our very special club grading, members were in blistering form at the Central Region Championship! There were so many outstanding performances from club members all day it was terrific. We had entrants in the junior and senior events and everyone excelled. We achieved a fabulous haul of medals:
Teddie Henderson won gold in the 18-21 male kumite!
Becky Cassapi placed 3rd in the ladies kyu grade kata;
George Coates placed 4th in the junior boys kata;
the adult kata team placed 3rd;
and we also played our part in making the men’s team kumite final, which was the last event of the day, one to remember!
Our team of Myles Ponsonby, Audrius Mickalauskas and Teddie Henderson fought the favourites, Cambridge University ‘A’, to a draw in a nail biting encounter which we were unlucky not to have won. After three fights it was a dead heat. The atmosphere was electric when we sent out Teddie to face the ‘star’ of the Cambridge team in the decider! Teddie fough heroically but just lost by the narrowest of margins – it was a real showstopper!
- Above from left, Audrius, Teddie and Myles take silver in the team event!
This year’s event also marked the 30th anniversary of Sensei Brennan’s tenure as the regional coach and at the start of the finals he was presented with an engraved crystal bowl. I had also been asked to perform a demonstration to mark this occasion which was a real honour. Coincidentally it was also 30 years to the day since I first competed at the Central Region Championship when I won the junior kumite as a 15 year old purple belt! It was a real privilege to perform a demonstration in these circumstances and together with ‘fall guys’ Teddie Henderson, Alan Lea and Audrius Mickalauskas we did our best to come up with the goods!
What a weekend of karate!
SOUTH NOTTS KARATE 