Congratulations to Team Sheffield who took part in the Open in Dartford on Saturday, in an amazing display of great spirit, skill and camaraderie!
Well done to Big Joe, Maggy, James Ang, Charles, Chu, Douwe, Lil Joe, Danny and Shinobu!
Amongst other things - I won't bore you with all the medals... - Big Joe took silver in the mean's randori, whilst Maggy won gold in the women's randori, and together with James, they won gold for the team randori. Shinobu took part in his first competition and with Danny, they took bronze for the randori no kata. Many more medals were won by embu pairs Charles/ Chu, James / Maggy and Big Joe / Lil Joe.
Beyond the great results, there were some great highlights, in no particular order: Chu scoring a sumiotoshi ippon - the second of many ippon to come, no doubt! Big Joe securing victory for the team final with a very well-timed gyakugamaeate ippon and much-improved movement; former embu pair Shinobu and Danny battling it out against each other to move past the first round, a very close bout which I had the pleasure to referee (posture you two!) and Maggy winning all her individual randori bouts below the allocated three minutes, having improved on her strikes and giving an impressive and varied display of ippon. And much, much more from the whole team.
All this led to Sheffield lifting the Open Trophy for the 7th year running, in fact since the Shodokan Open were started in 2006. So a big pat on the back to the whole team and celebrations are in order. Next year, we'll do even better, with a bigger team, more kyu grades and a greater margin over the next clubs. Wouhouh!
In the meantime, omedetto, Kotetsu so machi!
Celine
PS: photographers on the day, could you also post pictures on the Steel City Facebook pages?
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