Nice to see an old face around the place Gould , how are you? We should arrange to meet at the British if you're going? Mitch
Dan Zaleski took a few guys over, I don't know what dojangs he teaches but they were a friendly bunch. I'm good Mitch, hoping to dust of the pads for the British if I can get down to Light heavy, so it be good to meet up.
i gotta admit, the reffing, officiating and so forth was really good, as stated earlier in this thread i think it was pretty unbiased. your the guy who warned me for my contact 4 times against the canadian dude?!
yeah sorry, I did warn everyone about their contact levels so it wasn't anything aimed at you!. just trying to keep the contact to a fair level to get a decent fight. It was probably the best heavyweight division i've seem it ages.
lol, u warned me for my punches - cool. then u said my kick was excessive - but he kept walking into my kicks, and punches too....??! i cudnt help that lol. it was an ace division! u gonna be at the British?
I've seen a guy win a tournament by walking into stuff (3 knockdowns), so it could be worse. We didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
I'm not familiar with him as he's out on the West coast. I wonder if any schools from Ontario joined in on the fun. I'd love to compete on the international level before I get too old for it
you can't get it all right . hoping to be at the British, if i can drop 5kg then I'm trying at Light heavy, otherwise I'll be in with the sluggers!.
VZ/mitch, I was in light heavy ladies. Claire got knocked out by Jessica Howells, Welsh squad member. She won her first fight indeed. Jess got knocked out in the final by cecilia haramboure from argentina - an awesome fighter, who started looking like she was just a puncher, but when she needed to she completely changed her game and was throwing some awesome axe kicks etc...an excellent fighter. I was left completely gutted - I got 2 byes straight against Jess, lost and got bronze! Can't believe how small the division was: 4 fights to win gold...turns out there is such a thing as too much good luck. I would have really hoped i could have proved i could have beaten those people who didn't turn up/were too heavy. Just turned out to be the last 3 people underneath my name on the list weren't there. I know I am not on par with the top 2 just yet, but definately thought i could have earned that bronze myself. Boohoo. Still, made up for it by winnign tag teams. Bring on the other comps is what i say. As for saturday i was judging musical patterns all day which i was seriously chuffed about! didn't want to miss those
cheers Cavallin, thanks for coming up to talk to me! I missed some of you guys on the Worlds, but magically I always have two fighters competing on the opposite sides of the TIC hall and running here and there... Photos will be in a while, I came back home at night and need to fix my car asap...
I need to carry round a pic of you gizmo; I saw a couple of people I thought might have been you, but the one I actually talked to didn't speak English How did your guys get on? Mitch
As for my club, we did just great. My 11 years old student Ada stormed her way to victory in both green belts patterns and sparring. 16 years old Bartek did a fantastic job winning the -168 cm black belt junior sparring. After a bye in 1st round he fought 5 great bouts defeating a strong Argentinian boy in the finals after an extension, in an electric atmosphere created by both Polish and Argentinian teams. Third medal in the individuals was won by Marcin who, weighing only 54 kgs, fought in the -64 kg senior blue belt division and lost a close final to another Polish guy. My students also took silver and bronze being part of tag-teams with other schools and bronze in the black belt national squad. On the national team subject, the men lost their semi-final against England 6:0 this time, after losing 6:4 in the 2007 edition; however, the best part for me was the quarter-final, when Poland faced a great Australian team led by Tony Curtis. It was one of the matches you go to competitions for, and being there just for this one match was already worth it. Extremely close bouts (win, draw, draw, draw, win), excellent combos, great fighting spirit and, first of foremost, a fantastic sportsmanship among the fighters of both teams and a great atmosphere created by their supporters. That was an epic battle and whoever didn't saw that, lost a very precious part of the show As for the Polish contingent in general, I don't have detailed statistics, but we were among the driving forces of the tournament. Bringing over 50 fighters from our association alone and 2 club from other groups certainly helps. Michal Nowak did indeed face Warren Vice in the teams, but lost quite clearly. The British team had a much easier way to the semi-finals with the Dutch giving up the previous match, while we had to fight three matches almost in the row; Michal, got a bloody nose from the Australian fighter and definitely looked intimidated by Warren; he scored some points but this time he was no match for the TAGB powerhouse. Not an excuse from our side, the English guys were better on this day, and we look forward to meet them again in the future for the next episode of PTU vs TAGB series. Anyway, fighting Australia the way it was fought was even worth losing to England later.
A good day out for the Poles! Please pass on my respects to Michal, I enjoyed watching him compete enormously. An aggressive but controlled fighter with good movement. If he can bring his back leg in more I think he would challenge even more than he did. Very impressive. Mitch
Here's proud Gizmo with double world champion Ada (she has a wicked side kick, really), Krystian (not his best weekend but still with a bronze) and Bartek proudly wearing his first "black belts only" gold. The first photo I got from the event, more to come. Feel free to use it if you want to spot us on future events
