So tonight we restart training.

Coach Lance has been away at the 2015 Junior World Championships and 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Slam competitions; but he is back now so training is back to normal as of today (November 3rd).

But that is not all, this week marks the launch of our teen programme. Our Junior Bears programme starts on Sunday (2pm-3pm); this is a class for teens (academic year 7+) and it would be fantastic if those reading this help promote the class in their area or around local secondary schools.

And even that is not all!!

We have had approval from the Hampshire Judo committee to organise the 2015/2016 Hampshire Team Championships. This is a 3 event series for kyu grade men. It is team based, so we need to identify -66kg, -73kg, -81kg, -90kg and +90kg players to represent our club. The fist event is on December 6th so not long to prepare.

As the hosts, it is up to us to make the event special, so please volunteer your time and skills to try and make this the best series of events possible!

Here is the poster our very own Liam has done for the event (please share with your Judo Buddies):

Unfortunately I have been unable to secure coaching cover for the 4 Judo session starting October 25th through 1 November.

This sadly means that Judo is not on on these dates. Judo will be back on as normal from Tuesday November 3rd.

On Sunday October 18th 2015, the team headed up to Eastleigh to compete in the Hampshire Open Judo competition. This level 3 event was open to all and our small team of five players walked away with 4 of the medals on offer.

Great performances were put in by Aleks, Sean, Gary, Sergio and Victor (left to right in photo). What is particularly impressive is that with the exception of Gary, this was the first Judo competition that the team has competed in. So bringing home medals is even more impressive considering the opposition included the 2012 Commonwealth Champion and a current Senior National Squad member (ranked 162nd internationally).

The performances are good indicators for success in the upcoming London Universities Competition (November) and Hampshire Team Championships (December) at which we hope to send full teams.

The icing on the cake was that the team members were awarded free entry at the next Hampshire Judo event by the organisers due to our team staying until the end and helping put the competition mats away and helping tidy up after the competition.

Congratulations to all the team for great performances, a terrific medal haul and for representing the club well and gaining the recognition of the county committee for your true Judo spirit.

More photos from the event are posted on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ssujudo/

We are extremely pleased to announce that start of our Junior programme!

Starting on November 8th we will have a session for secondary school aged children (Academic year 7 and above) starting at 2pm at St Marys Leisure Centre.

This group (the Junior Bears) is new for the club and we look forward to bringing in secondary aged students into the club and building the programme. It is a new project for us, so please help spread the word and if you have contacts in secondary schools please tell them about our session and see if we can promote Judo.

Stay tuned for more details!

Congratulations to Aleks and Sean who participated in the BJA National Kata Championships on the weekend.

The participated in the Kime no Kata section and came second to the reigning champions!

Study of kata is a key learning method in Judo and competitions help encourage more people to participate in doing kata. Kata is also a great alternative to other training methods such as shiai and randori.

Congratulations to Sean and Aleks, who not only showed great courage in participating at all, did so as novices against black belts!

Congratulations to those who graded for their new belts today!

We were also able to enjoy a demonstration of the first set of the Nage no Kata by Gary (now 1st Kyu) and Jordan (not grading today); then a full demonstration of the Kime no Kata by Aleks and Sean (both graded to yellow belt today). 

It was great also to have Ramesh on the mat with us and even more new faces. This week we hope to welcome all the new Solent University Students who have discovered us via the sports fair.

I was struck today by the confidence everyone showed today; well done!

Our coach, is currently away in Amsterdam at the 2015 IJF World Championships Kata & Veterans.This is great for the club as it encourages us to invite guest instructors into teach whilst regular coach Lance Wicks is away. Our coach is then also able to bring the experiences and knowledge from attending these events back into the club.

The Kata championships was held this weekend. Five kata were competed in; including the Kime no Kata which we have been learning and look forward to entering our own players into the British Kata Championships in October.

The Veterans Championships is open to Judoka over the age of 30. With 5 year age categories, divided into 14 categories there will be huge amount of action happening over the five mats,over five days. British Judo (and Hampshire Judo) has a strong veterans community with regular competitions and training sessions held  that people who are older can enjoy. Many coaches (Including our regular coach, Lance and some of our guest coaches have competed at the World Veterans and can recommend it as a great experience. It is a very welcoming and fun community where the competing is equalled by the socialising and definitely eclipsed by the friendships.

Whilst Lance is away, everyone should attend the guest instructor sessions as we are very fortunate that these individuals have agreed to visit and share their time, enthusiasm and knowledge with us.

From tonight onwards we are pleased to offer a groundwork only session at St Marys Leisure Centre, Southampton, Hampshire.

This will be a regular session and anyone with an interest in improving the groundwork skills is welcome to come along (BJA, BJC, BJJ, all means all).

To mark the first session we have created a little event on our facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/429753383894504/

Please come along and let us know if you’ll be coming down!

We are pleased to announce that we have more Guest instructors joining us over the coming couple of months!

On Sunday September 20th, Peter Boniface (Winchester University Judo Club) is going to take the session and on Tuesday September 22nd Gary Hill (Southampton University Judo Club) will be in charge.

Both these instructors are friends of the club and we have enjoyed competing and training with them and their club members in the past. We will be spending more time with them during the next academic year; so this is a great chance to learn from a new course and to get to know their faces for when you meet them at local competitions or events.

We are very fortunate to be able to announce that Danny Murphy (5th Dan) will be taking two groundwork sessions for us on October 10th and 22nd.

Danny is a well known and highly regarded Judo coach and also has a background in BJJ, so is ideal for our new ne-waza focussed Thursday sessions.

Danny has been Hampshire squad manager, as well as a coach at the London Budokwai.

We would like to thank him for accepting the invitation to come and improve our groundwork. Be sure to tell your friends and if you have friends in BJJ these would be ideal sessions to bring them along to as Danny has great skills in BJJ as well as Judo groundwork.