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YJC at Scottish Open July 2009 Members of the Young Judo Club based at the Swale Martial Arts Club East Street Sittingbourne travelled to Dumfries Scotland to compete in the Scottish Judo Open Championships. Members have been travelling to Dumfries to either compete or give courses for 30 years, the late Nobby Clarke 6th Dan was invited to give a course on Judo back in 1979. For the last 10years IBF Scottish President Robin Hyslop has been running the Scottish Open, this year’s event was not as well attended as previous ones because of the present economic downturn and Swine Flu. It seems the threat of this Flu is greater then the risk of catching it, a team of 15 Dutch emailed to say they would not come because the risk of catching Swine Flu in GB was to great, now it would be easy to condemn them but consider the amount of publicity Swine flu has created and the over reaction by our Government and Foreign Governments one would think if you entered the UK you would get the equivalent of the Black Death. Yet the tournament still attracted some top players making the journey worth while and allowing our competitors the ability to fight different competitors. The new rules brought in by the International Judo Federation did prove controversial especially the amount of time allowed to fight while on the ground, The Scots refereed the Juniors and were criticised for allowing to much time on the ground and in the seniors were refereed by the English and they were criticised for not allowing enough time on the ground. Martin Clarke 8th Dan was one of the corner judges and when one of the competitors complained to him about the rules his answer was “do not blame me I did not change them so do not try and shoot the messenger” It is true the new rules have proved to have made a dramatic change to Judo and if you want to stay in the game you will have to learn how to deal with them. Yet many Judoka are leaving the sport to take up Sombo/Sambo because the rules are less restrictive and easily understood. First out for the club was 14 year old Ben Franks who has just returned to competition from an enforced lay of, which has done him a power of good. His first fight was against a young lad from Newcastle who was considered favourite to win, this did not faze Ben who countered the boys hip throw with a superb suplex to score maximum point win of Ippon, the rest of the competitors fell like nine pins for Ben to take a well deserved Gold. Bens Gold was followed by Gold from Jamie Mazzetti in the Young Men’s event; Jamie made hard work of this event as lately he will rely on countering but still a good result. Our only Lady fighter was Debbie Jackson and this year the Ladies event was extremely hard event with some class players, Debbie fought well to take Bronze. The toughest event of the day and the one that caused most interest was the Men’s U90k class and Danny Carrott was our man for this event. He could not have had a worse draw with Danny Roberts Scotland last year’s winner and extremely good player from Newcastle both in his start up pool. His first fight was against the lad from Newcastle who you could see by his demeanour was used to competing with top class players but Danny had the beating of him mainly because his fitness was better as the match had to go into extra time. Next was Danny Roberts who had beaten our Danny quite convincingly last year this was a close fought match which again went into extra time but Danny prove the better player on the day catching Roberts with a Drop Shoulder throw for the full 10points Ippon. The finals saw Danny up against Veteran player Judoka Johannes Alder Scotland, this is not the first time the two have met and lately Danny the younger player has had the edge but this was not the case this time with Johannes catching Danny with a Kata Guruma Shoulder wheel for disputed Ippon, Ref and one corner judge gave Ippon while the other corner judge gave Waz-ari but it did not really matter as it was highly unlikely that Danny would have recovered, so silver for Danny. This young man is a bit of an enigma he has been injured for several months and only just returned a few months ago, ignored the advice of Coach Martin Clarke not to go out the night before the competition and still puts up a brilliant performance. John Clarke 5th Dan was the senior Referee for the event and Colin Carrott was the Senior Competition Controller for the event both Coach at the Young Judo Club
For more information email: sombgb@blueyonder.co.uk, www.youngjudoclub.co.uk 07894145187 01795 437124
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