Student Nationals in Southampton
First tourny of the year (first one ever without Fab L ) and everything was running smooth at 7:30am until Petros decided he was too busy looking at porn on his Laptop to answer his phone and made us get a random cleaner to let us into his department at Langstone. So picked up Petros and left for Southampton! 5 mins later we turned back round, Petros had forgotten his license. So back to Langstone, picked up Petros’ license and left for Southampton, had some random discussions on the minibus (Paul’s a filthy, dirty woman and the worst type as well – the man type) and Alex reminded me of the awesome “Top Gun” song ‘Danger Zone’ which I think my version of fired everyone up for the tourny.
Anyway arrived in Southampton in good time ( 8:30am), Arj was supposed to meet us here but didn’t; we tried ringing him about 10 times in the duration of 3 hours but he didn’t answer so I dunno what happened to him (hope he’s alrite? If your reading this Arj then let me know!) – We got everyone weighed in, no shocks there except that Alex beasted 99.9kg and Feliciano weighed about 2kg (cos of what he was wearing) and got put in the helium weight category.
We then had to wait around for a few hours because the organisers decided to re-organise (job security I guess) but then the fights started at 1pm, and we started to kick ass! – Well more like get our asses kicked, the white belts lost the first 4/5 fights (just down to lack of experience guys nuttin’ to be worried about), but there were some awesomely close fights; Alex lost in sudden death but only cos he gave away soo many points for kicking the guy in the balls! And Feliciano lost by only half a point! However Feliciano’s opponent did give him plenty of hugs that he’ll be pleased to go home with. I have to say Mo and Colin both impressed me with their sparring today despite their lack of success.
Our only successful white belt (Samantha Walters) won two fights pretty comfortably to come home with a gold medal (great job) after knocking her opponents around the ring with some fascist headshots and a very nice use of the classic “I’m gonna plant the sole of my foot on your face” technique which I’m sure will be very enjoyable to watch on the video.
Laura competed at Red belt level (one before black) and made pretty easy work of her first opponent, but lost in the next round after 2-0 after putting up a brave fight against a fighter that dicked on her last time (harsh but fair, it shows that she’s improved a lot since then).
Finally Paul competed at 1 st Dan (Black Belt) level and held his own vs. a very fast and tough opponent but wasn’t able to clinch the win – good effort tho matey.
I didn’t compete but came home with a very soar throat after screaming at Sam to kick her opponent in the head, screaming at Alex to kick his opponent in the stomach, screaming at Laura to kick her opponent more and screaming at Feliciano just to kick his opponent anywhere!
In conclusion, it was a great day and as with every situation in life the girls came out on top (which is sometimes a good thing), so good job especially goes to the girls, but well done to everyone else as well – the student nationals is definitely considered one of the hardest tournaments of the year and a lot of you went for it even tho you lacked previous tournament experience, which takes a lot of guts and trust me you’ll be rewarded for it at the later tournaments you attend where you’ll be kicking ass.
Many thanks go to our super duper driver Lee Mason and our instructors Master Pat Donnelly and Steve Butler for their coaching.
The pictures and videos will be on the website soon at www.portsmouthunitkd.co.uk
So til’ next time,
Steve
UOP Taekwondo Club
President
DOTD – Petros for leaving his license behind (basically the only thing he needed to remember)
WOTD (woman of the day?) – Sam for kicking lots of people in the head and getting a gold medal for it
Medals tally:
Sam Walters – Gold
Laura Dadd – Silver
Alex Wagnell – Bronze
Feliciano Wong – Bronze
Hamid Khazzaban – Bronze
I’ve been to the danger zone!
Click here for the vids
