Huge congrats go to Jennifer and Arek who completed a tough session today at their brown sash grading. As Derek said last night the guys portrayed a good account of the club, their instructor and most importantly, themselves.
The club came back with an impressive haul of trophies from the recent BKFA Nationals held just outside of Birmingham, UK. Well done to everyone who went over, fighters and supporters. There were no easy fights and every fighter from the club made at least the semi final for their section which is pretty impressive. Please see below for a message from Derek:
The club came back with an impressive haul of trophies from the recent BKFA Nationals held just outside of Birmingham, UK. Well done to everyone who went over, fighters and supporters. There were no easy fights and every fighter from the club made at least the semi final for their section which is pretty impressive. Please see below for a message from Derek:
Derek Dawson - Head Instructor Boyne Valley Martial Arts
Results
Jake Patterson 1st - Plus 5ft Adv Junior Points
Arkadiusz Nowicki 2nd - Mens Intermediate Points
Nathan Hegarty 3rd - Childrens 4ft 4" Points
Padraig Dunne 3rd - Mens Continuous (all grades)
Glenn Chegwidden 3rd - Mens Beginners Points
The BKFA recently celebrated its 40th anniversary with a dinner held in Birmingham. Derek, Niall & Simon were joined by some of Master Yaus other Irish Lau Gar at the dinner. Derek presented Master Yau with a very special gift and his words rang very true on the night - "a rare gift for a rare man".
What a week at the summer training course. Old friendships renewed, new ones made and club mates have become good friends.
Well done to Lorraine, Michael and Stephanie who survived their first summer training. Massive congrats to the two ladies who were also presented with their orange sashes by Master Yau on the final day, quite an honour.
Thanks to all of the Guardians who gave us their guidance, advice and friendship over the course of the week and especially to John, Morag and Master Yau - we are truly lucky to be guided by such talented and dedicated martial artists.
Finally a MASSIVE thanks to Simon who chauffered us all around in the Fun Bus during the course of the week.
Well done to everyone who has graded recently.
Firstly a couple of shout outs.
Congrats to John who passed his Brown Sash earlier this year (sneaky so and so was recovering from injury and graded without anyone even knowing!), so a MASSIVE congrats to him. Well done to everybody who has passed their White sash gradings so far this year. Its the first and often most daunting step on your Lau Gar journey so well done again.Unfortunately I wasn't able to make the recent Drogheda gradings so well done to you all.
Finally (a grading I was at) - well done to everybody who graded after the Navan class tonight with successes from Blue Sash through to Yellow. Special Mention goes to Richard who graded for Green Sash who showed no fear fighting the adults at the grading and to John from Drogheda who had to dig deep during his sparring sessions for Yellow Sash. Well done all!
Since the start of the year the club has been quite active in competition and are bringing home silverware from each and every tournament our members enter. However, special mention must go to Jake Patterson who is really making a name for himself on the Irish competition circuit. He only narrowly missed out on qualification for the irish team in the March qualification tournament but his performance in the recent Best Of The Best really takes some topping. Having registered he was informed that there was no one else in his section and was therefore automatically awarded first place. SCORE you may say but not enough for Jake who gamely asked was there another section he could fight in. Despite only being 14 years old, the only section open to Jake was the Adult Intermediate section. No problem says Jake and enters........and cleans up. And I do mean clean up as there was barely a glove laid on him during the fights.