This weekend we competed in the fourth round Hampshire Judo Team Championships. We had a full team, Winchester Judo Club took top spot on the day and then it got very interesting, due to the way the round-robin worked the results were almost exactly the same and depending on how you looked at it the result varied.

The way the officials calculated it we came third behind Southampton Uni.

In our first match against Winchester Judo Club, Winchester took an initial lead before we were able to come back. Winchester then sealed the victory with a final Ippon beating us 3-2.

Next we took on the number one team in the championships, Southampton University. This time we started of with an Ippon, but the strong Southampton Uni won the next two in a row. We won the fourth but lost the fifth and final fight of the match.

Next we fought the combined team of Crofton and Holbrook Judo clubs. This was a close match, we started with a win, then lost the second. But the next two went our way giving us the win although the other team manage to prise the final match away form us.

Our final match of the day was against the AWE club. We took the first, third and fourth fights. AWE won the second and fifth fights; giving us the win.

The final tally for us was two wins and two losses. What was nice was that the two matches we lost were the first two, with the final two being the ones we won. So the team learned as it went along.

Importantly, this result moved us back up into the top three in Hampshire. Our goal is to hold onto the third place position for the remaining two rounds in the championships. If things go really well, we may even be able to climb even higher.

So a big congratulations to our team, you did great and it was particularly good to see the results of our extra training paying off. Our focus on defending against shime waza (strangles) was apparent, with none of the team succumbing despite some strong attacks against Reece and Helen in particular.

Fitness was good, our technique is developing and the work we are doing at present on “Kake” is showing positive signs and should “bear fruit” for the next Team championships event and importantly for the Hampshire Championships on March 16th.

Video footage from the Southampton Solent media students filmed the event and we shall share it here when it is ready.