December 14, 2008
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Napier Friendly Tournament

Just to catch you up on what we’ve been up to since the site went down… we took a team to the Napier Friendly Tournament hosted by Sensei Virgil Troy.  Napier and Hastings have big junior dojos plus there were entrants from Tararua and Palmerston North dojos.

The adults division was mostly novice which offered a great opportunity for some of our less experienced fighters including some ‘first timers’.  It was a good day for Mt Vic Dojo with a disproportionate number of wins!  Being a bit of a last minute decision to go we only had one junior entrant, our son Rubin.  It was really cute seeing him line up for the march on between our 6 foot + men!

From my *terrible* memory… Chris Eades won his division, Josh Struthers won one fight but lost his next, Paulo and Gareth, both first time fighters, had to fight each other!  Gareth was cool as a cucumber and used his extra reach and strength to floor Paulo several times taking the fight but Paulo, who’d only been training about 3 months proved he’s a scrapper & one to watch.

Zeke and Thelvin ended up fighting off in the final and Thelvin, another ridiculously smooth fighter for his experience, capitalised on Zeke’s injuries and took the trophy.  Jamie and the crowd were fortunate Mikaere came down from Hamilton so we could enjoy a really top level Kyokushin fight.  Both these guys are at the top of the game in NZ and have a vested interest in staying that way because selections for international events hinge on who has beaten who most recently.

This was Jamie’s day.  He really nailed the fight and impressed us with the clinical way he closed Mikaere down.  Unusually, it was all over in 3 mins with Jamie taking a first round decision!  Can’t wait for a rematch!!! 

We owe a huge thanks to Alan Struthers for organising the spectacularly good accommodation and otherwise being the ‘go to man’ for the fighters.   It made it a very easy trip for us and the guys…  I think it’s likely we’ll aim to take a few more students up next year.

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