Bluewave took a small team out to last weekends championships in Northern Ireland. The trip started with a rather dramatic journey (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27951827) leaving the team a little shaken and in Manchester rather than Belfast! After an unplanned overnight stay and a flight out in the morning the team arrived…just in time for Coleen’s division which meant her rushing in and then straight onto the mats. Despite the stress, everyone should be very proud. This is a very high class event with many international class competitors, and all our competitors are showing good progress. The results were
Coleen Reilly, Semi-Finals Female 18-35 Dan Division
Sian Reilly and Amy Stock, Semi-Finals Female 15-17 Dan Division. Amy achieving a personal best score.
Lynne Firth, Silver Medal Female Under 60 Dan Division
Finally the synchronised team of Amy, Sian and Coleen came within a whisker of taking an unexpected bronze in the Female Dan Team division. PB score with the first poomsae and then missing a bronze by 0.05 points!
I also had the privilege of judging alongside some of the best judges in the UK.
After the tournament on the Saturday, everyone on Sunday was treated to an excellent 4 hours seminar covering Freestyle Poomsae rules and then three of hours of detailed practice under the watchful eyes of top WTF International Referees and Coaches. Great weekend. Well done to Master Glen Culbert and his team for an excellently organised tournament and seminar.
Plenty of further opportunities coming up for those interested in competing in poomsae, come on its fun! To help encourage people we are making some changes to our poomsae competition training format. So from the next monthly session on Saturday 5th July the sessions will be 2.00-4.00 for all grades/ages, you just need to be confident in at least your first poomsae, there will then be a further hour of practice available from 4.00-5.00 for the dan grade competitors. The final hour will be less formal and you will not need to stay for the whole hour, this is just practice time and the coaches will be available to assist and advise. Please also remember that there is no charge for these sessions for current Bluewave members. Looking forward to seeing some new faces on the 5th.