Club Competition 2024

Each year the club organises an internal competition, with the hoping of getting people who've never competed before to give it a go. Intra-Club Competition 2024

Competition Report

The 2024 Intra-club competition saw a mix of new and old faces and promised to be a great event to round off the term before Christmas!

Kata

We began with the Kata rounds with 1 round for Kyu grades followed by Dan grades (2nd round for top 4).

Women's Kyu Kata
Emma took the win with Heian Godan with Shloka coming a close second with Bassai Dai. A great start to the competition.

Mens Kyu Kata
Bassai Dai was a popular kata amongst this group - 4 out of 5 performed this. Yusuf with the Shitoryu version won this round with Rolland and Indi in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Overall very tight Kyu Grade Katas and a great overall experience for everyone!

Women's Dan Kata:
We saw a variety of Katas in this category, including some Wadoryu and Shitoryu ones.
Rose took a decisive victory with her Katas, Anan and Chatanyara Kusanku scoring 21.7 points each, the highest of the day.
Fatemeh and Amélie both performed Gojushiho Sho for their final round and had strong performances to round off the podium places. A very close category here and a very high overall standard and a range of katas performed made this a particularly exciting bout to watch!

Men’s Dan Kata:
Bassai Dai once again was popular in this category and performed by 3 of the 4 that made it to the 2nd round.
Both Dani and Alexander performed Gankakku for their 2nd kata, securing 2nd and 3rd place with Nirmay taking the victory with 21.6 points for both Gojushiho Sho and Kanku Sho.
Again a very close first round, with more support for the main 4 black belt katas seen here.

Kumite

Following the highly intense kata rounds, everyone prepared for Kumite with some last minute additions. All rounds were a speedy 1.5 minutes with Shobu Ippon scoring.

Women’s Black+Brown Belt Kumite:
With 2 last minute additions to the draws for Angela and Shloka alongside Liz and Erin, this category promised to be even more exciting!
Liz led the points against Erin scoring 2 wazaris in the time and securing her spot in
the finals! Erin put up a good fight in response and came very close to scoring several times.
Shloka and Angela were added to fight at the last minute with Shloka also competing in a category up from her usual. Angela took the lead with a wazari before the time ran out, giving her the victory in the end and taking her to the finals.
The finals ended up being very evenly matched with both Liz and Angela scoring a wazari each and keeping the other at bay for the winning point. A very exciting match to watch ended with the referees choosing Angela as the winner for the Women’s B+B Belt Kumite category (renamed from Dan Grades).

Men’s Kyu Grades Kumite
Indi and Rolland were up first. Rolland pulled up 2 wazaris to get through to the finals.
Yusuf and Ben were up next, with Yusuf similarly scoring 2 wazaris back to back to secure his spot in the finals.
The final saw the clash of the “2-wazari” winners, with Yusuf scoring a beautiful roundhouse kick and another wazari to propel himself to the top step of the podium.
Another exciting category with a good showing from the Kyu Grades.

Men’s Dan Grades Kumite
The first fight was Lukas against Li Sen, with Lukas starting off aggressive and scoring a quick wazari. Another wazari followed and took Lukas to the semi finals.
The next fight saw another last minute addition of Alexander against Nirmay. Within a
couple seconds, a strong face punch led to a quick “ippon” for Nirmay, who proceeded to the finals.
Lukas was up again for the semi-finals against Callum, with Callum scoring a wazari with a front hand jab to lead the points. Following that, a punch-kick combination scored an ippon for Callum and secured his place in the finals.
The finals saw Callum face off against Nirmay. There was a slower start than the other fights seen, leading to a clinch before a “yamae” was called. In a faster paced resumption, a stunning head kick by Callum left the referees in disbelief as Sensei Ken, the centre ref, “heard it but didn't see it”. Eventually scoring that as a wazari, Callum initially debated whether to go aggressive before deciding to hold back for a moment before eventually scoring a final wazari to round off the finals as the winner!


Image credit: Emma Shen

Due to a delivery issue, the medals could not be handed out on the day, however to finish off the competition, the Alvaro Angeriz Award was presented to Shloka, in light of her great kata performance as well as her surprise entry into the kumite matches, where she kept her cool and fought in a higher category than usual! In addition, her commitment to classes and being a very friendly person to everyone in CUKC makes her the most deserving of this award!
Thank you to everyone who helped organise this intra-club competition, including our President and VP, Callum and Rose, as well as our Chief Instructor Sensei Ken and the other referees, and Maya for scoring at the table, without which this competition would not have been possible! Finally, thank you and congratulations to everyone who competed, this is a great experience for everyone and is a great stepping stone to larger competitions in the
future!

Report by Nirmay Jadhav
CUKC Men’s Captain