British Karate Federation Championships 2014

The East Hull Woodford and Shinken Dojo's both sent competitors to the British 4 Nations on the 17th May. Representing the East Hull Dojo were The Dhesi siblings of Teerth, Charan and Amrit, and representing the Shinken Dojo were Jordan Taylor, Ben Harrison, Joel Edgar and Amie Newton. Both clubs were to win gold thanks to the outstanding efforts of Amrit Dhesi and Ben Harrison.

Ben was to take the first gold of the day as he contested the Male Cadet Kata section. Working his way through the rounds looking confident and composed, he managed to nudge nearer the medal positions with each round. Of course once in a medal position it's a case of how far can he go. Well on this occasion Ben did himself and coach Paul Braid proud by booking himself a place in the final itself.
Here he would have to wait the agonising delay until the centre area which had been set up for the finals was ready for him. Once ready though and streamed live on the British Karate Federation YouTube channel, Ben came up with a performance which saw the panel of five judges vote in his favour. An excellent result and one which rewarded the hard work and tenacity shown by not just Ben, but all of our competitors.

The second gold medal of the day was won by Amrit Dhesi. Amrit would win his in the Boys 9 years and under kumite section. Amrit followed in Ben's footsteps as far as the procedure for getting into the final went. That is, gradually but methodically working his way through the rounds up to the point he was one of only two competitors left. Once at this stage Amrit was able to get straight on with his final, as these younger age groups, non WKF, were held on the areas where they had been conducted. However this still left a job to be done, and for the second time in 9 months Amrit was to win a kumite gold at this impressive Emirates Arena in Glasgow.

Well done to both our gold medallists!

Of course our other competitors had their glory too. Amrit for instance, un content with one medal battled his way into the kata final for his age group too. Once there his opponents performance was considered to be the better of the two, but this never the less left Amrit with a gold/silver brace of medals around his neck.

Bronze medals were the order of the day also. Thanks to excellent performances from Charan, Amie and Jordan. Charan and Amie were in the same categories for both kata and kumite because of their ages, and yet bizarrely they were to match each other medal for medal thanks to a pleasing yet understandable draw where they were in different halves. This meant that they avoided meeting each other through the rounds, making sure they wouldn't reduce our chances of medals by 50%. This system should be used all the time but quite often we suffer the indignity of meeting each other because of an inadequate draw. however this draw was favorable, and the girls both managed to win bronze medals in the same kata and kumite events and share the honors. A very pleasing result.

Jordan was to win our final medal of the day in his Junior kata section. again with the confidence and composure shown by his team-mates, Jordan worked his way through the rounds up to the point where he was in the repechage final. This match he was to win, giving himself his first but hopefully not last British medal in a WKF category. Again this is reward for the extra sessions working on kata with his club, and also the ones traveling to train with the National squad coach.

Overall it was an impressive set of performances from our small squad, not least of which from our two British Champions Ben and Amrit. Well done to all those who competed and represented their clubs and Wado UK admirably. Thank you also to Paul Braid for managing to single handedly balance so many plates by attending to 7 competitors, in 21 categories, over 9 tatami's. Not a bad achievement from him either.

 

 

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