September/October is our busiest time of the year; it’s when all the new students start at the University and Freshers fair brings in lots of new blood. This year I’m hoping for our biggest recruitment drive ever; so I’m calling on all out members (past and present) to step up and help us bring new people into our great little Judo club.

This week is our first week back with our regular Tuesday and Sunday sessions. So now is the time to dust of your judogi and get back on the mat. Time to make a commitment to attend regularly and get that next belt or medal.

My hope this year is that we can pull in a larger group, so anyone with idea on promotion please let me know. I’m open to suggestions and if you have an idea you would like to try I am more than likely to say go for it!

Once we have got past freshers at the end of the month and have got the new faces settled in we shall sit down together and decide what events we want to attend (the first comp in at the start of October) and what other activities to do.

We will also be choosing some club “officers” to take responsibility for driving us forward. Specifically, taking on some of the paperwork and planning for the club. We will also be trying to get involvement from the wider university community. So for example, we want to find peole with interests in strength and conditioning, videography, design etc to help us with getting stronger, making videos and designing logos, t-shirts etc.

As usual we welcome non-students, so everyone can attend and be involved.

Lance

Dear all,
we are now closed until Sunday 31 August 2014.

We are taking a break over the summer so you can all enjoy a break, recover and because I (Lance) will be away to attend the World Championships; which you can watch for free online at ippon.tv when the event starts at the end of the month. There are 4 British players competing and all the big names we talk about each week will be there.

Come 31st August, Danny Murphy will be back and leading a County Wide Randori session. This is an open mat training session where everyone and anyone from inside or outside of Hampshire is invited to come and train. We hosted the August one at the start of the month and it is a brilliant opportunity to train with Danny and to meet other Judoka from other clubs.

As I am away in Russia, it would be great if some people could volunteer to attend both the Junior session (3pm) and the senior session and help Danny make visitors feel welcome, mats get laid, any issues dealt with, etc.

From the 31st we will be back to our normal session times and our focus will be on getting ready for Freshers Fair at the uni. We want to push hard for recruits! Then we will be training, competing and training and competing. The Hampshire Team Championships will I hope be going ahead and the London Universities will be upon us.

I’d like to put a competition schedule together and build a strong team; so I will be recruiting players and recruiting “support staff”. This will be our fourth year and we need to do even better than last year where we gained our first national champion!

As ever, our sessions are open to everyone. We welcome visitors and guest instructors; so please help spread the word. Any ideas on promotion, please let me know.

Lance

We have now resolved this issues around our training sessions and can confirm that we have our regular session times booked into the computer.

Tuesday 8pm & Sunday 4pm
At St Marys Leisure Centre.

Sunday is the more technical and is a skills based session and Tuesday is more open and Randori based session.

As ever, we have a real mix of abilities and experience levels. Lots of adult beginners and adult returners along with our university students.

We will be setting our competition schedule for the next 12-18 months soon. Depending heavily on what the county association sets in the calendar.
Hope to see you all on the mat soon.

Sorry everyone, hall not booked for us tonight so no training.

Legacy -81kg Challenge (part 1)

Legacy -81kg Challenge (part 2)

After a nice long break we are back to training.

There are lots of events for us to attend and not long to train for them. With the weather getting better we can look forward to some great evening training.
Sunday remains our technical session and Tuesday the more open Randori based session. Both are open to all levels.

See you soon!

Sunday 6th April 2014.

Thanks to the support of Lendrum’s Driving School and Legacy Sportswear we were able to run a fantastic event where all the participants were able to have plenty of contests and the winners receive prizes.

• Winner : Wayne Patterson (Priory)
• Second : Calum Rollo (Southampton Uni)
• Third = : Ilya Kalugin (Team Solent)
• Third = : Warren Spreadbury

A big thank you to those who attended and supported this event. Especially the volunteer officials and of course the good people who helped lay the tatami.

Video footage of the event will be edited this week and put online as soon as possible

Legacy_81kg_Challenge_Sheets

The year is now fully back into the swing of things and attendance numbers are back to normal almost; a few regular faces are missing still enjoying a break perhaps; but new faces are joining us each week at the moment which is fantastic.

We participated in round 4 of the Hampshire Judo Team Championships on February 2nd; with mixed results. Ionella again won the womens category; receiving some praise this time round for the technical improvements she has made since joining us last year.

Player of the day was Rafal who returns to competitive Judo after a 20(ish) year break from playing Judo. His third contest was exceptional; he was down by a yuko, but did not give up! He fought valiantly and it was looking like a loss until he turned it around in a moment catching his opponent with a  beautiful Ippon throw for the victory!

We have also enjoyed visiting Ringwood Judo Club and Camberley Judo Club to extend our experiences and also to help our players competing in the British Universities National Championships prepare. Both clubs have made us feel very welcome and it was also a pleasure to host a visit from Ringwood Judo Club at St Marys.

Coming up we have the British Universities Championships on February 22nd where we have three people competing. Then the fifth and final round of the Hampshire Team Championships (March 2nd) where we hope we might be able to bridge the gap between us and Holbrook Judo club to reclaim third place in the county. It will be a tough job but with the progress people are making it might just happen.

The international season starts this weekend also, with the Paris Grand Slam and club coach Lance Wicks will be attending many events again this year. Starting with the Rome Continental Open in Rome. We hope to be able to announce details of a “viewing party” shortly where we shall be getting together to watch an international event together on the big screen via htp://ippon.tv

A big thank you to all our visitors and to the new people joining us and keeping us growing. Of course a just as big thank you to the regulars who come and make the club the fun (if exhausting) training it is!

Last night we had a visit from the Ringwood Judo Club, who brought a strong cadre of players to join our Tuesday night Randori session.

They came in response to our invitation via Facebook to all Hampshire Judo clubs and players to visit on a Tuesday night. We are inviting people as we are preparing the university student members of the club for the BUCS National Championships in February.

To further our progresison we will also be visiting other clubs in the build up to BUCS. Starting with a visit to Camberley Judo Club this Friday and then Ringwood Judo Club on Wednesday (be sure to tell Lance if you would like to come).

So a big thank you to all those from Ringwood who came and visited us and helped our team prepare; we appreciate your friendship and look forward to visiting you next week!