February Triangular Session

Despite the small matter of a flooded dojo, we still managed to run the triangular training session as planned today. Fortunately the Solent Uni training session is at the same time so all it took was a quick diversion to St Marys! Thanks to Lance and Solent University for letting us descend on them, and sorry we couldn’t host you all!

Thanks to the Southampton players who managed to cope with the relocation. As usual it was a great chance to train with a different set of players with a mix of work on fundamental movements and some friendly randori. Hope everyone had fun!

More photos on Flickr : http://www.flickr.com/photos/southamptonuniversityjudo/sets/72157626160255016/

Important info for Sunday session this week

I am at a competition in Worthing tomorrow, so there is a chance I may struggle to get back to Southampton for 5pm.

Judo will happen and if necessary we will just start a little later. I will email the club list by 4pm tomorrow to either confirm that we start at 5pm as normal, or to specify a later start time. So please make sure to check your email before heading to the Students Union to make sure you arrive at the right time!

Gary

Matsumachi Club Visit

At last night’s training session, we had a visit from Paul Sawyer and his club Matsumachi. The plan was for some training with new faces followed by a friendly team contest to give everyone a low key opportunity for a more competitive experience. Some players had more contest experience than others but it was a good exercise for everyone.

After a warm up and looking at a nice simple but effective piece of groundwork technique courtesy of Paul we ran the contest between 2 teams of 6.

Fighting approximately from lightweight to heavyweight, Matsumachi took an early lead as they won the first fight by ippon, and the second contest finished as a draw with each player scoring yuko and waza-ari.

That was the sign for Southampton to start to fight back and we then leveled the match with an ippon hold down before Matsumachi edged back into the lead with the score Southampton 1, Matsumachi 2.

Home team honour was retained as Richard and Matt won the final 2 contests with nice ippon throws.

Paul did a great job refereeing the contest and making everyone work hard to be awarded good scores. Looking forward to the return match when we hope to visit Matsumachi in Christchurch.

More photos on the club Flickr stream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/southamptonuniversityjudo/sets/72157625945159081/

The visit from the camera crew was to capture some footage for the SUSUtv Sports Show so all those present will be famous in a few weeks and there should be a write up in Wessex Scene as well.

London Universities Open 2011

Saturday Feb 12th saw us leaving Southampton at the anti social time of 6.30am to get ourselves to Brunel University for this years London Universities Open – a grade banded event open to all university judo clubs.

Rather uncharacteristically the early start meant we arrived to an empty hall with plenty of time for those who had been borderline on weight to confirm they would be fighting in a heavier than usual category!

The competition was grade banded with categories for Novice to 5 Kyu, 4 Kyu to 2 Kyu, and 1 Kyu and above. We had 4 players in the intermediate category (Matt, Morgan, Herac and Lachlan) and 1 in the 1 Kyu category (Richard). It turned into a successful day out with 4 silver medals one in the 4k-2k category at under 60 kg, under 66 kg, under 73 kg and under 90 kg.

Morgan (u60) and Matt (u90) both had to fight in single pools to take their medals and both achieved this with wins via hold downs. Herac and Lachlan had more work to do with 2 pools followed by a knock out.

Herac was unlucky to lose his first fight having been in the lead but being caught in a hold in literally the final second of the match. He made up for that with a quick fire win in his second contest to secure a place in the knockout. Another quick win from a seoi-nage through put him in the final. Unfortunately as a natural 66kg player Herac struggled to deal with the strength of his opponent in the final and lost to an ippon hold but took a well deserved silver.

Lachlan decided to get value for money from the day. He won his first pool contest with a pair of nice waza-ari throws but after struggling with gripping he lost his second contest. Normally this would have been enough to get into the knockout but the pool was tied with an Ippon score for each player and everyone got to fight again. The first refight lasted literally seconds, Lachlan throwing a classic sumi gaeshi for ippon from the initial exhange of grips, then winning his second fight with a strong hold down.

Into the knock out and the semi final saw probably the best throw from our team of the day with a fully committed uchi mata for ippon. Unfortunately the final was one contest too far and having been caught for ippon, it was another Southampton silver.

Richard was the last player to compete, having spent all day supporting the rest of the team. Richard was fighting above his normal weight at under 81 kg and in a category full of strong players; unfortunately the draw was not in our favour and facing 2 strong fighters in succession meant Richard wasn’t able to challenge for another medal.

Everyone performed really well and it was a great chance to brush off contest cobwebs prior to the BUCS championship in March.

Also great to see on the day were strong performances from the other Hampshire university clubs at Solent and Winchester who we have been holding regular joint sessions with. They each took their own share of medals as well.

The full selection of my favourite photos from the day are on the club Flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/southamptonuniversityjudo/sets/72157626038406200/

Martial arts room open!

The room is open again – tonights session will run as normal. See you there!