October News 10

The next British Karate Team League Event will be held on the 10th October 2010 at

Clacton Leisure Centre,
Vista Road
Clacton on Sea
Essex
CO15

Kata: Fenella Stuart, Chloe Duce.

Kumite: Maisie Raymond, Maizie Crooks, Chloe Duce, Rhian Duffy.

Kata: Zak Coates, Sam Day.

Kumite: Zak Coates, Laurence Gill, Mitchell Priestley, Jake Pickering, Daniel Szabo.

Chris Harris of Links Karate Kai has been selected to represent the England Karate Team at the 2010 International Grand Slam, to be held in Dublin City University Dublin Ireland on the 2nd October. He will be part of a seven man Team which will take on the National Teams from Ireland, Scotland and Wales where the top fighters from England will take on the best of the rest.

LKK Karate would like to wish him the best for his trip.

LKK took a small squad of 8 to the Grundy Sports Centre in Cheshunt to compete in the BIKO Open on the 3rd October 2010 and came away with 11 medals, including 6 Golds.

Sam Day was joined this time in Kata competition by Zak Coates and both competed admirably. Zak, in the Mixed U10’s, showed off his Nidan and then Bassai Dai to good effect ending up with the highest score in the final round for Gold. Sam went through 3 rounds with his Jion, Kanku Dai and Bassai Dai again scoring well but just fell short of the ultimate prize coming away with a creditable Bronze.

In the Kumite (10-12 Boys), Sam was soon back on the mat and being flagged into the final by a referee’s decision after a close semi-final. Jack Appleby made it through to face him with 1-0, 4-0 and 4-0 victories, scoring with both hands and feet. In the final, Jack scored an early Mawashi Geri for Sambon and then held his distance for another 4-0 victory and a Gold medal, Sam adding Silver to his earlier Kata medal.

In the Mixed U10’s Kumite, Harry Blundell, Zak Coates and Ethon Day all made it to the semi-finals. Harry threw numerous Gayaku Zukis to get through to meet Zak with scores of 4-0, 2-0 and 2-0 while Ethan was too strong for his first 3 opponents, his prowess scooting him through 9-1, 4-0 (with a retirement) and 3-0. Zak’s punch over the top saw him easily take the 1st round 8-0 but he had an exciting battle in round 2 to win 6-5, scoring right at the end. His match up with Harry in the semis was a typical LKK battle and ended up 7-3 to Zak with Harry taking a Bronze. Ethan unfortunately lost in the semis in a scrappy fight 0-2 and also took Bronze. Zak took a close final 3-2, again scoring over the top and claiming his second Gold.

Mitchell Priestley in the 13-15 Boys continued to impress taking another Gold for LKK. After a fight with numerous warnings on both sides Mitchell took the 1st round 11-5. In the semi-final he had far too much for his opponent scoring at will and coming through 7-0. A close fight in the final against good opposition saw him take it 1-0 in the end. Chloe Duce was in the Girls’ version of the 13-15’s and fought good opposition in round 1 to lose 1-4 and miss out on the medals this time.

Josh Crooks faced larger opposition than the rest of the team in the Adult Men’s section. He was far too fast for his 1st 2 opponents scoring with both punches and a Mawashi Geri 8-0 and 5-1. In the final he came up against a well-matched fighter and, although it could have gone either way, Josh was pipped 5-7 and scored Silver. He then took on a couple of Open Weight opponents for his second category of the day and won 5-1 in the 1st fight, being too quick for his larger rival. The 2nd fight of this round robin event was extremely close against a fighter of equal size and speed but Josh triumphed 8-7 for a well-deserved Gold medal.

The final event was the U10’s Mixed Team and again this was a round robin event with 3 teams in attendance. LKK’s team of Harry Blundell, Zak Coates and Ethan Day faced a weak team in the 1st round of fights winning 5-0, 3-0 and 8-0 respectively and never really being tested. The 2nd round against EKK saw Harry kick off with a good 3-1 leaving Zak to win the title 4-1. Ethan’s defeat (3-7) was of no consequence and the team took LKK’s final Gold.

Considering the young squad only had one (non-competing) adult with them in the stands they behaved in a way that made LKK proud and competed to a very high level. Sensei Paul coached them on the mats to a number of excellent results winning 6 out of the 9 categories entered.

Gold: Jack Appleby, Zak Coates, Josh Crooks, Mitchell Priestley, U10’s Team.
Silver: Josh Crooks, Sam Day.
Bronze: Harry Blundell, Ethan Day, Sam Day.

Squad: Jack Appleby, Harry Blundell, Zak Coates, Josh Crooks, Ethan Day, Sam Day, Chloe Duce, Mitchell Priestley.

British Karate Team League 2010 – 5th Leg Report

An expectant crowd watched the fifth of six battles in the British Karate Team League 2010 at the Clacton Leisure Centre on the 10th October. The home supporters got progressively more excited as they witnessed LKK overwhelm the opposition with a powerful and skilful display.

The LKK team consisted of:

Kata:
4th Kyu and below – Fenella Stuart
3rd Kyu and above – Chloe Duce.

Kumite:
9yrs and below – Kayleigh Mead
10/11yrs – Maisie Raymond
12/13yrs – Maisie Raymond
14/15yrs – Chloe Duce
16/17yrs – Rhian Duffy.

Kata:
4th Kyu and below – Laurence
3rd Kyu and above – Sam Day.

Kumite:
9yrs and below – Zak Coates
10/11yrs – Laurence Gill
12/13yrs – Mitchell Williams
14/15yrs – Jake Pickering
16/17yrs – Daniel Szabo.

Kata (Three flag system in operation).

Fenella Stuart used her Nidan Kata to good effect against her ELKAI opponent to win 2 flags to 1 but came up a little short against a good EKK girl losing 0-3. Chloe Duce’s ELKAI opposition performed a strong Bassai Dai to beat her Jion 3 flags to 0 but she came back strongly against EKK with a 2-1 performing Kanku Dai this time. ELKAI put up no-one in Laurence Gill’s category so a 3-0 scoreline resulted. It was tight against EKK but Laurence’s Nidan was just good enough to win 2-1. Sam Day ended the Kata using his Jion to beat both ELKAI and EKK with scores of 2-1.

Kumite (Three flag system in operation).

In the 9 yrs and below section for girls Kayleigh Mead ran out a 5-4 winner against ELKAI coming back from being an early Sambon down. The opponent spent most of the fight running away and the warning she deservedly picked up towards the end decided the fight. There was no EKK opponent so an 8-0 scoreline resulted. Zak Coates, in the boy’s version, managed to pull away after a slow start to an 8-4 against ELKAI and then beat a limited EKK lad 4-0.

In the 10/11 girls category Maisie Raymond threw some superb punches over the top to overwhelm her ELKAI opponent 5-0 and then controlled the fight right to the end with EKK but lost a late point for a 2-2 draw. In the boys, Laurence Gill took advantage of an ELKAI boy who was lacking confidence after being hurt against EKK and took it 3-1. Against EKK there were few techniques thrown and it ended up 1-1.

Maisie Raymond made an invaluable appearance in the 12/13 girls scoring a point (8-0) against ELKAI who did not have a fighter to put up. It goes to show that by being brave enough to take on this higher category she contributed by getting on the mat for LKK. She fought valiantly against a quicker EKK girl but in losing 0-8 gained the cheers of the LKK supporters as she never gave up chasing this much older opponent. Mitchell Williams, for the boys, got off to a brisk start against ELKAI and finally dispelled any hopes his opponent had of winning with a Mawashi Geri near the end winning 6-1. His EKK adversary looked rightly worried as Mitchell used a range of techniques to win 7-0 and even had time for a cuddle with him on the floor as they swept each other – obviously just to show the friendly side of the BKTL!

Chloe Duce – in the 14/15yr olds – was far too fast for her ELKAI challenger always being first to the punch and putting her away 7-0. The second fight against EKK swayed to and forth for the first half of the contest before Chloe pulled away to defeat her 11-5. Jake Pickering fought an evenly matched ELKAI boy scoring mainly on the retreat and winning a close one 5-3. He lost early points against EKK when going punch-for-punch and never regained them to lose 1-6.

In the last age category of the day – 16/17’s – Rhian Duffy overpowered her ELKAI rival 6-1 by going forward and scoring as she did so. Although she lost early points against EKK she scored right near the end to bring it back to a 2-2 draw. Daniel Szabo fought a larger but slower ELKAI opponent and was always too quick for him winning 5-0. EKK’s representative had the LKK fans worried going into a 3-0 lead but Daniel battled back superbly to take a nail-biter 4-3 and end a great day for the club.

While Sam Day was our most successful Kata exponent on the day the Kumite honours definitely go to Maisie Raymond who fought in 2 categories and showed great spirit even against much older opposition. Mitchell Priestley again showed maturity to Captain and coach the team.

LKK polished off the 2010 BKTL title with a convincing win. With creditable results in Kata and only 2 losses in Kumite they used home advantage to show that they were the best team on the day and the better squad over the whole season. With one more BKTL meeting still to go in December it has already been a successful year so far for LKK in this new format of competition.

Thanks go to Sensei Paul Harris for organising this meeting and to Fred Harris and Sarah Day for manning (or should that be womanning?) the table. Also thanks goes to the LKK referees – Loren Cook, Sam Beck and Emily Griffiths – without whom no competition would be possible. Thanks also to all the other helpers who made the event possible and finally, of course, the supporters who help the competitors with their ever-noisy encouragement. Hopefully, as many as possible will make the final trip of the year to London for the competition and presentations.

LKK: Gold 9, Silver 5, Bronze 0
EKK: Gold 4, Silver 3, Bronze 7
ELKAI: Gold 1, Silver 6, Bronze 7

British Karate Team League standings:

LKK: 14 points
EKK: 10 points
ELKAI: 5 points.

The Senior Squad are competing in the WKF World Championships Belgrade, Serbia at the end of October. The EKF squad are:

Kata: Jon Mottram, Emma Lucraft.

Kumite Male: Rory Daniels, Alton Brown, Chris Harris.

Kumite Female: Natalie Williams, Katie Hurry, Rio Smith, Sibohan Hayes, Carla Burkitt.

The squad have been pre-training with the National Coach Wayne Otto OBE and will have a final session during the week before they depart for Serbia. The squad leave on Monday 25th October. We hope to be able to bring you photos and reports of the event. The Board of the EKF would like to wish the Senior Squad and Wayne Otto every success and best wishes in the forthcoming championships.

19 LKK squad members attended the last EKKA competition of the year – the South East England Championships – on Sunday, 24th October at St Joseph’s College in Ipswich. There was less of a turn out even than the last EKKA from other clubs and this meant that some competitors from LKK were moved up in category as they had little or no opposition.

The sparsely attended Kata saw LKK take all the Japanese categories. In the 0-7 kyu Harry Blundell (Bronze) lost a close semi to Silver medallist David Brian who then lost a close final to the Kayleigh Mead who took Gold. With four LKK competitors in the 4-6 kyu category it was Lincon Pretlove who over came Laurence Gill to take the Gold. Lincon had previously beaten Fenella Stuart in the semi and Laurence had done the same to Toby Tweed, each of the losers taking home a Bronze. Sam Day was moved up to black belt kata as he had no-one to compete with in the 3-1 kyu section. He performed an excellent Jion to beat his Dan grade opponent 3 flags to 0 and complete an LKK clean sweep of the Kata Golds.

The LKK Kumite competitors only failed to win 3 categories of the ones entered. Ethon Day, with a Silver and Harry Blundell and Laurence Gill with Bronzes started proceedings before Kayleigh Mead, after 2 straight forward 6-0 victories, took the first Kumite Gold. Fenella Stuart also outshone her opponents relatively easily for a second girlie Gold before Lincon Pretlove and Jack Appleby evened things up for the boys with 2 Golds of their own in their height versions of the 4-6 kyus. Jake and Josh Pickering were drawn to face each after both easily won their first fights with Jake coming out on top for Gold this time after a good fight, Josh settling for Silver. Chloe Duce and Emily Appleby took Silver and Bronze in a small 3-1 kyu category while Josh Crooks sneaked a first round full of contact before winning the men’s final to take Gold. Daniel Szabo beat Mitchell Priestley in their final as the two friends slugged it out and Loren Cook won a close fight against Emily Griffiths for LKK’s last 2 Golds and Silvers of the day.

Thanks go to the higher grades who dashed around coaching the squad and to Sam Beck, Loren Cook and Emily Griffiths for their refereeing. Also to the ladies who stepped in to do table duties.

Gold: Sam Day, Kayleigh Mead, Lincon Pretlove
Silver: David Brian, Laurence Gill
Bronze: Harry Blundell, Fenella Stuart, Toby Tweed.

Gold: Jack Appleby, Loren Cook, Josh Crooks, Kayleigh Mead, Jake Pickering, Lincon Pretlove, Fenella Stuart, Daniel Szabo
Silver: Ethan Day, Chloe Duce, Emily Griffiths, Josh Pickering, Mitchell Priestley
Bronze: Emily Appleby, Harry Blundell, Laurence Gill.

Jack Appleby, Emily Appleby, Harry Blundell, David Brian, Loren Cook, Josh Crooks, Sam Day, Ethan Day, Chloe Duce, Laurence Gill, Emily Griffiths, Kayleigh Mead, Jake Pickering, Josh Pickering, Lincon Pretlove, Mitchell Priestley, Fenella Stuart, Daniel Szabo, Toby Tweed.