Walderslade

18th November 2007

Kent County Grading

On 18th November, six club members attended the last BJA Kent County Grading of the year. There would have been seven club members taking part but unfortunately Emily Birstonis’s licence had not arrived in time and although proof of posting and details of her current grade and insurance was provided, Emily was refused permission to take part on the day. This was very disappointing for Emily and the club’s Coaches present who explored every avenue to try and convince the Senior Examiners present to take a flexible and pragmatic approach to the issue. However, it was not to be and Emily now has to wait until the New Year to take her first BJA grading. It was different though for the remainder of the clubs fighters. Two of the clubs ladies were taking part in their first grading since turning senior and it is fair to say there were some serious nerves on the day. However, both Louise Parsons and Yasmin Hogben fought really well and did the club and themselves proud. By the end of the day, Yasmin had been confirmed as a Senior Lower Green Belt and Louise had moved to Upper Green after two superb wins.

The first of the club’s men onto the mat was Yellow Belt Dan O’Brien. Dan won his first contest easily with Ippon off of a perfectly timed counter but was in turn thrown for Ippon in his next contest. Regardless of that Dan had shown enough to warrant the Examiners awarding him his Upper Orange Belt. We had two judoka in the Green Belt pools. Rob Kemm and Joe Walton. Robb had three good fights, winning one by Ippon with Osae-komi and drawing the remaining two. It was felt that Rob was unlucky not to have at least won one more as he clearly has the ability but could not produce the goods on the day. He was promoted to Upper Green.

Joe had a bit of a rough start to the day losing both of his first two contests. However, he was unlucky with these as both were due to counters made possible by a couple of mistakes on his part. Then, given the chance to fight again in the pools for some Blue Belts seeking higher promotion, he grasped it with both hands throwing both Blue Belts for Ippon in great style and earning himself promotion from Lower Green to Lower Blue Belt.

Ranj Atwal was the club’s only Brown Belt taking part on the day. He got off to a flying start throwing his first opponent for Waza-ari and then holding him down to clinch the win. Next up was a strong young player from Parkwood Judo Club. Ranj dominated the contest and used his experience on the ground to get his opponent where he wanted, where he proceeded to score Ippon with Sangaku-jime. Ranj was then offered a line-up but unfortunately was thrown with a drop seoi-nage in his first fight by a shorter player able to get underneath him. It was still a good result though, with Ranj coming away with another 20 points towards his 1st Dan and leaving him almost half way there with 47 in total.

All in all, a very good day for the club.