DJC @ The BJC National Championships

Sunday the 5th of May saw DJC head off to Kettering in Northamptonshire for the BJC National Open Championships.

Kettering is the place of my birth so im not sure if that's a good Omen or not, a few of our players had travelled up the night before and stayed in hotels, I was up at 3am on The Sunday morning to take Callum, Bogdan and Maddox on the 4 hour journey, we were also joined by Claire, Angie and Sidonia so Maddox and Bogdan were relegated to the boot

The BJC is a smaller association than the BJA of which Drake is a member, the BJC tend to focus more on the flowing side of Judo and the theory of Kyu-Shin-Do(circles) this tournament is their annual 'Open' Championship allowing players from the BJA to enter,

As a club we have attended every year since we founded and last year came away with two Golds(Nate & Maria) this year we had a similar number so it was going to be interesting to see if we could improve

The BJC has some slightly different rules to the BJA, for example there is no grip fighting in the BJC players are expected to grip immediately and this can cause a little confusion for BJA players, up to the age of 15 drop and sacrifice techniques are forbidden, this includes Tani Otoshi and Ura Nage.

Also scoring is different with scores awarded for culmination of shido's, Yuko still being awarded and 25 seconds for Ippon in Ose-komi.

Mike and I had explained this to the players and for the most part it didn't cause an issues, however there were a couple of exceptions

The players results were as follows

Nate: Nate was as i mentioned defending champion from last year and this year was no different, he rattled through his contests with the usual Nate style, the final proved to be rather tricky as the ban on rear techniques was hampering Nate and the boy he faced was unusually strong for a 9yr old, however Nate to the win and with it his 2nd consecutive title.

Tia: Tia's improvement continues and she was her usual happy self, she had a tough group but she still went in 100% including beating a young girl from Redruth who fought Maria at last weeks Bash, she was unlucky to just miss out on a bronze and take a solid 5th place,

Charlie: Charlie was undoubtedly the star of the day, in a huge group, Charlie won his first contest and the proceeded to quietly progress through the group winning his next 3 contests which put him into the final where he dug in and took the win, Gold for Charlie and a fantastic performance!

Jack: Captain Jack was with us(nothing to do with the giant skate park just up the road) his fights were all very competitive affairs, sadly no medal this time for Jack who first took park in the BJC's 6 years go, his support of all his fellow members was fantastic and he continues to set examples for the younger players

Bogdan: lets not sugar coat it, Bogdan did not perform to his usual standard, he was over thinking the non grip fighting which hampered his ability to contest the fights, though he was below this standard he still managed to win his first two fights and both his subsequent fights went to decision, so he was by no means out gunned, Bogdan sets high expectations for himself and he was disappointed(see the podium pic) however after a deconstruction after the fact, he realised what should have been done and he came away with a Bronze medal

Callum: Callum did as Callum does, he was very unlucky in his first contest and it was the only one of the day where i questioned a decision from the referee, he then proceeded on winning all his remaining fights to take a well earned Silver

Maddox: Maddox did not have the gods of Judo shining down on him, his first contest with Brodie from Kingsley School was tough affair and Maddox sadly injured his ankle and was not able to take any further part, the injury seemed to be a sprain so hopefully he will not be side-lined for long

Charlotte: Lottie was making her return to competition after last weeks brief cameo and warmed into her contests winning all of them where she reached the final, a mature well managed performance saw her take gold for the first time at these championships, After her return from injury im hoping this will boost her confidence and propel her onto more success.

Other results saw Vita take gold from Redruth, Joab from West Penwith take a Bronze and Kyra from Kingsley School take a bronze