A big hello and welcome to all the new students from Southampton Solent University who join us as the 2013 academic year starts. A big thank you to our existing student members who attended the university Sports Fair and helped encourage people to come along.

Our first session open to students is this Sunday at 4pm, which is our new regular Sunday timeslot for this year. The session is scheduled for two hours and is at St Marys Leisure Centre in the main hall. Sundays are going to be our regular Randori session, but for the next few weeks it will be lighter so new members can acclimatise.

New students please do join the Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ssujudo/ and say hello.

The first chance for you to compete is on the 6th of October, then two events in November and one last one at the start of December. So lots of chances to play! 🙂

Any questions, just ask.

All, with the ongoing renovations at the hall and scheduling with the university we have changes in our timetable.

So this week no judo on Tuesday. Sundays session starts an hour earlier at 3pm.

I will update the site with updates.

We have our first competition at the start of October, so get in touch and come to training. Also there is the university sports fair on 28th if people to free to attend and promote the club there.

Lance

Hi All, we are back in training today at 4pm at St Marys Leisure Centre and for good reason! The first round of the Hampshire Team Championships is on October 6th and we want a good start to the season so we can improve on last years third place!

So spread the word and invite your friends, Judo at St Marys, 4pm.

On Tuesday September 19th (8pm), we will be holding our first session after the summer break (note our new training days and times on the training page).

It would be terrific if everyone could attend, even if you are not training as we shall be holding a planning meeting immediately afterwards to set out plans for the new academic year and Judo season.

This will include setting a date for a AGM to elect club secretary, team captains etc. Also setting our competition schedule for the year. And importantly getting a team together to promote the club at Freshers fair and in the community.

See you there!

We shall be taking a break over the Summer, returning when the Solent University students return. This means that we will return the week of September 23rd 2013.

Enjoy the break folks!

For those of you keen for more we shall be arranging some one off sessions and also trying to attend some other clubs and also Hampshire squad training sessions. Stay tuned!

Garry who joined us just after the London2012 Olympic Games won his first gold medal at the Hampshire Splitgrade Competition on June 9th. The whole club is immensely happy with this achievement which has been hard earned by Garry.

Garry has competed for the club in the Hampshire Team Championships and has always performed well, this however is the first time Garry has won a Gold in an individual event.

It shows that an adult beginner can in a very short time achieve a good level of performance, if they train and study hard. If they gain the experience they need via some losses in competition and then persevere and compete again and again until they improve and win!

Congratulations Garry and thank you for being a member of the club!

Coach Wicks is back and the club calendar is filling up fast!

June 1st: Hampshire Area Mass Randori at St Marys (1-4pm Adults start at 2:30pm).
We again host a randori session for all comers, this was a well attended training session last time and we should all attend to make the visitors feel welcome and to get some new people to test our skills against.

£2.00 to the coach on the day.

June 9th: Hampshire Split Grade Competition at St Marys (all day).
This is a perfect event for our novice players. In this event you are grouped by grade and weight. So Yellow belts only compete against other yellow belts. Pools are grouped by weight; so the 5 lightest yellow belts compete against one another, then the next 5 and so on. In the adult categories it is restricted to red belts, yellow belts and orange belts only.

Entries are extremely limited and arte on a first come first served basis, so enter ASAP.

£18 online entry via https://www.onlineentries.co.uk/events/hampshire

We are back in action from This Thursday (6:30pm April 4th).

We are also hosting and competing in the final Hampshire Team Championships event on the 7th. This is preceded by a workshop in our dojo on the new IJF contest rules.

Then on the 13th we will be hosting a Hampshire wide Mass Randori being run by County Squad Manager (and friend of the club) Danny Murphy.

The club is coming back from the Easter break with a roar! 🙂

We are taking a break over Easter.
No Judo till our first session back on April 4th.

This weekend (Saturday March 16th) we are hosting the Hampshire Judo Championships at our home, St Marys Leisure Centre.

This is the first “big” event we have hosted since we started the club a few short years ago. The hope is the experience we have gained hosting the Hampshire Team Championships will help make this event a success.

At 8:00am on Saturday volunteers from the club and the wider Hampshire Judo Community will start laying mats for the players to compete on. If you are available, please consider coming down and lending a hand.

Competitors:
The club has a number of players competing in the event. That includes two from Southampton Solent University Judo Club, both in the Lendrum’s Driving School men-81kg category (Serjej and John). Reece and Cherie are also entered in the men-66kg and women-63 respectively.

Helen is competing in the Ealing Judo Club women-57kg category representing Southampton University and Peter is also in the Lendrum’s Driving School men-81kg category representing Priory Judo Club.

We have a full house, with the event actually being slightly oversubscribed. So we expect an exciting days Judo with kids in the morning and adults in the afternoon.

Spectators are very welcome and by coming along will help raise money for the MS Society as the door charge is going to that good cause.

Our club is adults only so we are looking for results in the afternoon. Obviously we are heavily invested in the men’s -81kg category.

On the day the results will be updated online as try fights are fought, and a live video stream may also be available. We will post links when they come available.

Wish us luck and see you on Saturday!