Chuldow Squad Pages

FORMS REPORT
by Parent Jacqui Varley

The YKC tournament, held at Morley Sports Centre, has always been one of my personal favourites. It's close to home, held in a comfortable venue, attracts top class competitors, actively promotes traditional AND freestyle martial arts and, what's very important, the centre is slap-bang opposite Morrisons so some of us can sneak of for a full English breakfast!

Team Chuldow's forms squad was represented today by Katie Townsend, Adam Fields, Nichola Rock, Hannah and Jordan Varley, John Leeming, Naomi Ball, Tim Potts, Tim Morton and Debbie Bell.

It was great to see a good turnout with lots of well-known teams and faces as well as making some new friends. Our junior squad members, in particular, are getting very good at networking! Ray McKenzie, for his sins, was in charge of the lot of 'em!

I was especially impressed with forms peeps from Sheffield Dragons, Pocklington Karate Centre, Xtreme Martial Arts and Shukokai Isle of Man . This team, headed by chief instructor Neil Pearson, had travelled up from the south the day before for an exchange visit to Yorkshire following Leeds SSK's recent visit to the Isle of Man. They had strong team of forms competitors who entered many of the traditional sections (and won loads of medals!). I enjoyed watching them all compete and I wish I could remember more names here! However, one particular competitor sticks out in mind - Sam Walker. He was excellent and won the Junior Coloured Belt Traditional Forms section and then went on to compete in the Junior Traditional weapons section with tonfa and got silver. IOM's Gemma Pearson was brilliant and got gold in Coloured Belt Senior Traditional, Traditional Weapons and Creative - bloomin' 'eck Gemma - hope you had a big suitcase!

Other outstanding coloured-belt competitors were Hannah Russell (red - XMA) in the Junior Creative Forms section - gold , Daniel Bowen (also from XMA) in Junior Traditional Weapons - gold, and Janine Rogers from Pocklington who competed in Senior Traditional forms - silver. I also loved the little girl (brown belt) with traditional sword - I think her name was Kady Robinson from Sheffield Dragons. Our own junior, John Leeming, got his first gold medal in the Junior Weapons with Music section. Well done John!

When it came to the brown and black belt sections, we were spoilt for choice! Junior Traditional forms competitors included Oliver Brooke Adams (don't forget to sign our guestbook Ollie!) and Leanne Newton, as well as our lot! (Nichola, Adam Jordan, Hannah, Naomi and Katie). This was a large section and there were some outstanding performances from all the juniors. Oliver and Leanne took gold and bronze with our own Adam Fields taking a silver - he's a star! Jordan's Jion was much improved - hands much better I am reliably informed! Naomi also did Jion - I think this was her first major open ttournament - well done Naomi! Nicola did Enpi, Katie, unusually, performed Jitte (don't think I've seen her do that in an open before - looked good) and Hannah, decided on an experiment Shotokan Bassai Dai - very brave considering she's just a red belt in this style! Thanks to Debbie Bell for expert tuition and in-depth post mortem later!

The Senior Brown/Black Belt Traditional section was a real treat with Jason Baird and Lee Tiffany (both XMA) and Oliver Willison (Pocklington), taking the top three places. Debbie, Tim Fred and Tim also entered this very tough section - its all looking good! Jason Baird also took gold in the Senior Musical Weapons - I'm more used to seeing him doing empty hand but he used kama today to great effect!

In the more 'freestyle' empty hand sections, I enjoyed watching the strong contingent from Sheffield Dragons (in particular, Liam Eccles and Amy Langley - what a great ending to your form - ouch!). Oliver Brooke Adams was outstanding - as usual!

Our junior form's team had a bit of an 'off day' - oh dear! Least said I think . . . This section was won by an all-girl team from Sheffield Dragons with a really original acrobatic form. Two teams from Shukokai Isle of Man took silver and bronze. Team Impact were excellent and won the Senior Team section.

Luke Scott (WKA) was brilliant with bo in the Junior Weapons with Music Section and took gold. Andrew Richardson (White Tiger) was also excellent (bronze) and our lot didn't do so badly either! Katie took silver in this section - fantastic stances Katie! Jordan's kama form gets better with every tournament and both Nichola and Hannah were trying out 'new bits' in preparation for WKA World Championships in Canada. Unfortunately, Hannah slipped in the first 10 seconds of her form, ended up in A and E and is now bandaged from ankle to thigh and on crutches! Sympathy for poor parents please who were at Pinderfields til 3 am! Nic was also struggling with a toe injury sustained at Max TT - but she still pulled off a great second in Junior Traditional Weapons. Whoever said you couldn't get injured doing forms was having a laugh!

I'm sure I've missed out loads of excellent performances here - apologies if yours was one of them. If there are any names/clubs I've got wrong - blame it on my old age and bad eyesight! Thanks to Mick, Sue and Ray - see you all again very soon!

SPARRING REPORT
by LIV again coz of lack of sparring reporter

So here I am, spending my free time typing up reports for you guys - again - I hope you appreciate it!!! I FULLY EXPECT you'll all show your appreciation by signing my guestbook and talking on my forum! Especially you non-Chuldow people...

Anyway, YKC Morley - pretty good standard all round I thought. Some excellent fights from LKA, who seem to spend the entire tournament warming up from the library of LKA warm up photos I have kicking around my hard drive!

It was pretty much NSKA day in the sports hall, with many of the fighting sections being dominated by Daz Ellis' excellent team. They also seemed to have the reffing monopoly - lucky someone there wanted to do it! We think perhaps Mick should get some other refs in and give you guys a break. Excellent fights from Beverley Sturzaker and Maureen Dearden who ended up in the final of the womens section. I enjoyed watching the juniors as well, especially Ben Rowe - he had some excellent fights.

Chuldow had a good day fo making progress, with some excellent performances from many of the sparring squad, most notably Rob Wilson, Danny Crossley, Tom Sampson and Luke Fields - who all looked as though they've been doing this for 20 years! (And i don't mean old and haggard - I mean good - just for those pedantic people out there **cough**Rob **cough**). Was particularly impressed with Danny's fight - he fought like a tiger despite it being his first ever open tournament!

And now more on Rob because he complained about the length of sparring reports... Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob - and if you see young Mr Rob Wilson do tell him to shut up for me. We're are getting reporters sorted OK??!!

IOn a tangent, I fully recommend the Morrisons breakfast as Jacqui mentioned earlier, though I didn't eat it - I felt like I had eaten a full meal just from the smell...

Anyway... good fight from Leanne Newton from Fight Club etc. She's a great all rounder, and does points and continuous with the same ferocious nutbagness. Top fighting dude, keep it up and flippin' well visit a training session like you keep saying you're gonna.

Some good fights from a club whose name I can't pronounce... er... phstasm? or summat like that - anyway I keep seeing them but I have noo idea how to say that or what it stands for - I'm sure they have another name thats easier to type. Also well done to FAMA, Kaizen, Endurance, Free Spirit, Team Strike, Sheffield Dragons, NFKA and of course SSK Leeds (especially Reece Hackney).

Anyway, thanks go to Mick and Sue and co. for giving up their free time to run this competition - hopefully we'll be able to get to the next one as well. You never know with our schedule!!

Hopefully the next report will be even more comprehensive - perhaps I'll even have a reporter for ssparring you never know! Look out for our reporters out on the circuit - if they take your name you may very well appear in one of these reports - which i'm sure you'll agree are really excellently written, especially the sparring one...

Again, anyone now furious that we have used your name or photograph, it only takes an email for us to remove any item you're not pleased with. Maybe you don't like looking at pictures of yourself? I dunno. Anyway - good luck to everyone at the next tournament!!

------Liv------