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2017 saw a very low entry number into my Winter tournament and I decided then and there to take a step backwards and down size in 2018. I found a new venue in Nissan sports and social club, which provided its own matting and ran the tournament as an in-club competition.
THE MANCHESTER YOUTH OPEN 3.11.2018.
A lot of our squad simply did not want to enter here. The older girls get like this towards the end of the year, they have competed so often they want to rest and recharge their batteries. I know better than they do when it is time to do that, so I went ahead and sorted a large squad to enter.
The largest central English international to date and the smallest Dokan squad ever to attend a Stennet ran tournament. We entered 6 Elite squad girls and a younger sister.
Seven Dokan girls aged from 12 to 16 took time out to travel to Berlin Germany for Europe’s largest junior karate tournament. I was not exactly sure what to expect, but I thought it may have been similar to the Youth league in Croatia. It was not.
Thirty three Dokan students were entered the East Yorkshire open down Bradford on September the 16th. Only 32 turned up after Marcus Henderson broke both arms falling out of a tree. This spoiled two teams, a pair and no doubt Marcus’s weekend.
The competition itself could not have been better organised and finished at 4.20. I have not finished this early for at least 7 year. There were a few contributing factors to aid this. 1, The organiser Tony Dent knows how to run a comp. 2, The tatami were clear and the mats in good condition. 3, there was an abundance of refs, probably aided by Tony being a ref himself so they’re all his friends. It was the large volume of decent refs that made the difference here.
I heard about the youth league at the start of 2018. A points ranking series of tournaments for those aged 17 years and below who want to compete and ultimately be the best in the world.
The first one was in Bulgaria and it unfortunately clashed with my summer holiday. Straight after this event in May on the advice of some of England’s top coaches I arranged a meeting with my Elite squad parents to discuss entering the second Youth K1 in Croatia. The decision was made and five top girls chose to attend. We had very little time to prepare and I knew not what to expect.
Flights and hotels / apartments were hastily arranged by the parents and I registered the girls as world athletes.
What a fiasco with people signing up and pulling out then others coming in. People asking for coach seats, cancelling coach seats, denying even asking for coach seats and the bulk of this done over the final two weeks to the comp. I have never had to rewrite our running sheets so many times. Things are going to change and I will leave it at that.
Dokan = Top club, WOW. As our medal tally was well down on last year I thought we were not in the running for this accolade but with the comp being so busy the trophies must have been more spread out. With just shy of 1100 entries from the bulk of Britain’s top competition squads it meant an incredibly high standard, add to that huge sections, some with over 50 students entered and you have the ingredients for a top-quality tournament. What you need to complete this recipe is a fabulous venue and a top-drawer organiser and this is exactly what we got. With the eight areas working almost none stop all day and a great team of table staff and officials, they managed to get through the sections in record time. There were a couple of quite rude women with mundane jobs, wielding their tiny bit of power too zealously but I suppose this happens in all walks of life. Perhaps their day job is as a doctor’s receptionist.
Tyne Tees Open 17th June 2018.
Dokans very own competition was at an all time high this summer, with a good turn out in numbers and a fantastic standard throughout the day.
The Western Union Karate tournament is held twice a year at Weston Super mare in Somerset. It is a long a tiring journey from Sunderland but despite this Dokan have taken some huge squads down to enter in years gone by. The last two year however it has been impossible to muster the support. Personally I particularly like south west England and this competition. Bearing this in mind and the fact my daughter Eleisha is leaving school this year and will struggle to attend over night tournaments next year I came up with a plan.
The most important tournament in the English karate calendar, something we began preparing for as far back as October 2017. Seven months of hard work and preparation, I have never put as much time and effort into anything in my life.
As a mark of gratitude to the organiser of the North east open for entering our own Tyne tees open comp last November, I put together a squad to enter his spring tournament. He brought £336 to my comp and I took £1407 to his and if you consider this is my smallest comp fee of the year you can see the first reason why organisers would like Dokan to attend their tournaments.
CHOJINKAI MARCH 11TH 2018
This was the twelfth Chojinaki tournament and Dokan have attended around eight of the twelve. No other competition offers as many kids categories or has as many splits as this one. It is on paper the fairest children’s tournament in Britain, but the reality was a tad different this year, with a drastic shortage of competent refs and table staff. Despite being undermanned the tournament ran fairly smoothly to finish at around 7.30pm, which in itself was an accomplishment.
Dokan entered a huge squad of fifty students and between them they won 94 medals, which includes the 34 gold medals. The tally was so high because once again we were very successful in the team and pairs kata sections. Despite a few upsets the day was a huge success, not only in the volume of medals but by the performances of virtually all our students. The improvements over the last two months are huge and I was really pleased to see my hard work and the kids hard work coming together at last to produce a high-quality squad of rising karate stars.
Last year Dokan topped the medal table winning 10 gold / 11 silver and 28 bronze positions. This year we exceeded those results in every section so no doubt had there been a medal table this year we would be top club again.
I entered this years Kyu grade nationals without massive hopes for mega success. Most of our students were at the lower end of their age categories and I knew it would be a tough year.
