Dokan Karate Club

With only one week to go before Dokan squad set off for a two night stop over to Somerset for the Weston Union invitational championship, we decided to try out the Scottish International at Meadowbank, Edinburgh.

Not all could afford to go after only returning from Kosovo World championships a few weeks earlier but we did manage to pull together a respectable little squad of 14 junior students. Only one of them competed on the Saturday as the rest were under 13 years of age and they all competed on Sunday. The competition was pleasingly busy with decent numbers entered into all the junior sections although 90% of those entered were Scottish.

There were squad entries from Malta, Ireland and Denmark and probably a few more but I didn’t check. I must add the Irish squad were very friendly and pleasant which was a nice thing. I might look at some Irish comps for the future.

We started the day dominating all the kata sections we entered especially team and pairs as our kids were on top form leaving the referees in no doubt as to whom to vote for.

Kumite was more of a struggle but we still picked up a selection of medals here too.

As usual the whole squad performed brilliantly and despite some awful refereeing the kids all enjoyed the experience. Dokan now has 6 kids that are 2014 English National Champions, International Champions and World champions and four of them are from South Tyneside. You can't get much better than that in five months.

Of particular merit was Eve Palmer who moved up to the ten years and above category only two weeks back but still won gold in kata and bronze in fighting, as well as a silver and another bronze in other events. Lola Cassidy was disqualified in the kumite final while 7 – 1 ahead and totally robbed in the team kumite final with Katie Hunnam (who was brilliant throughout the day) and Olivia fellows. The under nines kumite team gave it their all.

We won 5 gold, 11 silver and 17 bronze medals - a decent tally from 13 kids.

One of the highlights of the day (for the some kids) was the minibus ride home where sensei Kev shared his selection of singalong cheesy kids songs with everyone. Lots of the club faithful get lifts all over from Kev and all like the CDs he originally made for his daughters before the age of in-car DVDs. Some of the mams admitted to quite liking the unusual tunes too. Quite a bit of singing, dancing and laughing went on and the three hour ride back passed in the blink of an eye.