June 1, 2008
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NZ Nationals 2008

What a successful Nationals for Mt Vic Dojo! It was a little sureal to be honest, just how well MVD was represented. To begin with we had an enormous team! The march on was almost comic with Mt Vic Dojo reps from 3′0″ to 6′5″ marching single file into the arena for what seemed like minutes! The day started with kid’s kata and we were enormously pleased with the performance of all our kid’s. What struck me the most was the contrast between our kata this year vs last year and even the kata I saw some kids perform in Japan 5 weeks ago and the same kid’s kata yesterday. The kata in the dojo has come on leaps & bounds in the past few weeks. I’m excited to see just where it goes from here - it seems everyone is striving to be faster, crisper and more intense. The competition is going to breed better & better kata. Congratulations to Tasha Keddy who took a medal for her Seienchin kata.

In terms of wins the MVD kids didn’t fare so well in the kumite. There were wins and a few medals but the competition from other clubs was hard… Kyokushin hard! Respect to all our kids for getting in there & having a crack. In terms of fortitude our kid’s fared superbly well & we’re very proud of the way every one of them performed. Full contact fighting is daunting and there were some daunting opponents, some big kids, some super hard kids and some kids who have been around for a few years now… even one kid with a Kyokushin tatoo!!

It’s difficult to tell kids and parents that it’s okay to jump into a competition where it’s likely we’ll be dominated and sometimes hurt, but yesterday of all days we do feel somewhat vindicated for shamelessly encouraging students to enter these things! Kyokushin is a path and an honest path that begins by fronting up to a situation that is frightening and finding out what you’ve got that works for you and what you’ve got that work’s against you. We look at every fight as a gap finding exercise. Whether our limitations are physical, technical or mental they are served to us like bad medicine and usually in front of our close friends and family.

Every fighter that participated is likely to have a few gaps they’ve been ruminating on since yesterday. We encourage the students to give some thought to what did work & what didn’t work for them & what did work and what didn’t work for their opponent. Winning comes from self awareness and, for most of us at least, from identifying gaps and spending the time between now & next time working on rectifying those gaps. Next time may or may not bring a win but if next time you can say ‘well I didn’t let x happen’ or ‘I managed to pull y off’ you’re massive leap closer to the target. And talking of targets…

I won’t say too much about the adults because I couldn’t say enough! I do want to say congratulations to every last one of you that competed. You all performed beyond our wildest expectations regardless whether you won or lost and it’s such a good reflection of the work you’ve put in, the fights you’ve won & lost in the past and the strength of the team. We’re lucky to have several very talented people in the club and it’s very apparent that everybody is spiralling to new heights. It’s a great place to be and a great moment in time. I don’t have it written down so forgive me if I’ve forgotten anyone or if I made up details. Off the top of my head these were the placegetters from the MVD team:

1st Place Lower Kyu Grade Kata - Aaron
1st Place Women’s middleweight - Jim (Chucky)
2nd Place Men’s lightweight novice - Brendon Tohill
1st Place Men’s middleweight novice - Greg Day
2nd Place Men’s middleweight novice - Ray Kwan
1st Place Men’s heavyweight novice - James Grover
1st Place Men’s heavyweight masters - Mark Richards
1st Place Men’s superheavyweight novice - Big Scott
2nd Place Men’s Lightweight - Rob Struthers
1st Place Men’s Middleweight - Dave Maguire (the crowd goes wild)
2nd Place Men’s Heavyweight - Phil Kirkman
1st Place Men’s Heavyweight - Jamie Eades
‘Champion of Champions’ - for winning against the Superheavyweight champion and the Lightweight Men’s Champion - Jamie Eades (God rest any sense of humility he ever had)
Technical Award - Rob Struthers

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