MARCH NEWS

On Sunday 25th March, this years English Championships were held at a fantastic new venue, The Nottingham Arena.

It was also the first time that area managers were used. Easy to spot in their red polo shirts the area manager’s job is to ensure the smooth running of the area, helping the tournament to run smoothly and quickly. Hopefully also making it a more pleasurable experience for the competitors and officials alike!

Another first was seen in the patterns competition. Instead of the usual five judges watching each student in turn, two students were on the floor at a time! Each of the students were scored by three judges, when all of the students in the category had performed their patterns the highest scoring students in each of the two groups performed their patterns again, but this time in the traditional way, one at a time in front of the five judges. This worked well and certainly reduced the time needed to get through all the pattern categories!

Our only student taking part in the English championships this year was Oryan Lightning.  He competed in the Boys Green belt lightweight division.  Unfortunately despite fighting well in an evenly matched fight Oryan lost to a single point scored in the dying seconds of the bout.