Auckland North Regional Tournament – 7th June 2009

This is an account of our time up in Whangarei.

Written by Bjarne Morris
Events Coordinator

We travelled up to Whangarei on the day before, so that we could arrive at the venue on time and be ready to roll. On the Saturday afternoon/evening our Club arrived in bursts at the Whangarei Falls Holiday Park and once our whole team had arrived we were ready to settle down and relax for the evening. After a few mild pranks and a group viewing of the latest X-Men movie we retired to our respective cabins to get a full night’s sleep (or slightly less for the boys dorm). Once the jokes finally ended in our cabin the night passed with no problems and everyone rested well. The next morning we all got up at around 7 or so (some more grudgingly than others ) to give us time to eat and get ready for a full day of competition. Breakfast was largely food from the BBQ the night before that we (tried to) nuke in a microwave as well as the usual suspects…  cereal, a few types of wheat biscuit, yoghurt, juice, etc. After wolfing down our breakfast everyone cleaned their messes, changed into their dobok and packed up for the short journey to the Kensington Sports Stadium.

Upon our arrival we were greeted with a large hall filled with other participants in dobok. There were people practicing for their chosen events, people checking the draws to see when they’d be competing and people lining up to be registered. Before long we had formed up and were starting into the competition. Patterns came first as is the norm at tournaments. Everyone who was competing from our Club entered in patterns and being our Club’s specialty really shone through. Everyone looked really good doing their patterns and as a result some people came away with medals. Unfortunately, not everyone placed in the patterns but for the most there was sparring up next to claim glory.

There was a lot of great sparring with our Club not only taking out the top prize in a few divisions but also demonstrating great skill with some of our students being highlights of the tournament. Notable sparrer’s were Karar who in his first tournament pulled a fairly large crowd, Jasmine who sparred incredibly well, Mervin… what can you say Mervin’s the man; and last but by no means least Damon who sparred fantastically. In the last matches before lunch, Damon drew in his first bout before taking the win and then straight after without a break was back in for another 2 rounds in his second bout, which he won outright. That’s 5 near non-stop rounds, which is an incredible effort and for that he was awarded Gold!!

Lunch hit and Tamaki stuck together discussing the morning’s patterns and sparring and as in good sportsmanship talked to their opponents about wins/losses achieved in the morning. An hour after lunch started the competitions were starting to heat up again, kicking straight back into sparring and not long after that power and specialty techniques. We had one power breaker from our club… yours truly, so enough said (kind of shy).

Specialty ran right through the afternoon into the evening with a lot of nice techniques coming out of our Club. Not long after the end of the special technique draws was the final form up and the end of tournament awards. Jackson flew his way to 1st place and Damon did exceptionally well with being ranked 2nd in a very close match (both in special and patterns).

Our Club did exceptionally well, overall our Club ranked 4th of all the Clubs in the Auckland-Northland area achieving this through 8 individual gold medals!! We also have the 3 winners of best in belt trophies with Jasmine-Lei Thach who was awarded Best Overall Female Junior White belt, Mervin Tibay who drew Best Overall Male Junior Yellow belt and Bjarne Morris took out Best Overall Male Senior Blue belt.

I hope everyone that came along enjoyed him or herself and hope that for the next event we attend that more people, if not everyone, feels comfortable enough to attend and compete.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all the supporters that we had at the tournament, I mean it when I say it wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t for you, so BIG CLAP!!

Congratulations to everyone who competed, regardless of who won what, I (and I think I speak on behalf of all the Instructors when I say) was really impressed with the effort and skill shown by everyone on the day and that we’ve definitely got a lot of potential in terms of both future martial artists and tournament successes.

If anyone has any questions about this or future events, feel free to approach me at the dojang or contact me.