Dokan Karate Club

Probably our last competition of 2017 and also Dokan's largest squad with just over 90 Dokan students in attendance. 

Only two weeks after the North of England we had our final external tournament of 2017 down Manchester. A new competition aimed at young students under 18 years of age. With some really good categories aimed at low grade students I expected a big turn out from Dokan.

For the bulk of our squad this was a return to the competition scene after a summer respite, for some of the younger ones it had been almost 6 month and it was time to see if the hard work they have put in recently was enough to secure success.

Originally a small squad of 6 students put their names forward to travel to Switzerland for the Basel Masters International. This was the ideal number to make up two kata teams and although only 6 there was some fantastic quality from those chosen. 

Central England Tournament Worcester 2017.

I planned this comp as far back as December in order to secure hotel rooms and every year I struggle to get replies yet by the time the tournament arrives we have always mustered a large squad. This year 28 Dokan students attended the busiest Worcester comp to date. The huge stadium was rammed full of competitors and spectators. I was very worried the event would over run and the standard of club attending was also mildly worrying as I looked round at top quality familiar faces from the competition circuit.

Our second time in the larger and much better venue of Temple park and it is starting to feel like a home venue already. This summer saw over 100 students from various clubs around the country make the journey north to compete against Dokan squads 75 entries. All in all over 170 students competing is not too bad. Many thanks to all my association clubs that supported the comp and to those external entries without whom it could not run. 

When the EKF decided to remove all under 12 year old sections from the English Nationals we were left with a large gap to fill. There seemed to be very little about in May and then I remembered the invite from Paul Campbell to attend his summer comp. A text was sent and withing 2 days we had a healthy squad of 26 students signed up for the weekend.

DOKAN KARATE ASSOCIATIONS AT THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS 2017

This year the English National Championships was held at Leicester arena on the 8^th and 9^th of April and was open only to students aged 12 years and over. Dokan took a small squad of nine girls to compete on the first day of the event. Their results were outstanding with a medal tally of 7 gold, 7 silver and 4 bronze thanks to some successful team sections. This was enough to put the club 6^th on the medal table for the event and only a couple of gold medals behind the winners.

One week after the Swedish open a hasty squad was put together to enter this year Chojinkai tournament which is a top quality competition with encouraging categories for all ages and grades below 17 years. The volume of categories on offer enabled me to invite in a larger span of students and we ended up entering 45 which was decent attempt on one weeks’ notice. 

YORKSHIRE OPEN FEBRUARY 2017. Now the Kyu grades were busy but they have 8 areas and lots of refs, the Yorkshire have 7 areas and not all are full size and a distinct shortage of quality refs, so these days are very different but the standard was as good at both. It is nice to compete at the highest standards but sometimes it’s even nicer just to have a few easy wins. There seems to be little of this nowadays but our kids were amazing and pulled off their usual personal best performances. This day turned out to be epic in more ways than one.