Battle of the Dojo 7 Report.
The Dublin 15 Dojo worked out great for the Battle of the Dojo 7. It was spread over 2 floors with the ring downstairs and the matted area upstairs. This year we decided to run 2 Battle of the Dojo competitions and to give people the opportunity of being crowned the Dojo ‘Grand Champion’, plus we ran a special grappling section for the first time ever. To make things harder, we ran the points fighting, continuous fighting and grappling sections one after the other and nearly everyone entered all 3 sections.
The competition got off to a flying start with the kids and the teenagers sections. I didn’t get a chance to see the kids but I heard that Glenn and James fought great which doesn’t surprise me because they are super students. They are both so positive and full of energy. Louise told me that Glenn was trying loads of crazy submissions in the grappling section too. Well done to both of you.
The teenagers are a very talented bunch and all of them fought really well. I did feel a bit sorry for Christopher and Daire because they haven’t sparred as much as the rest of them yet they still did very well.
The men’s coloured belt section was the most competitive section of the lot and there were some very good fights. It was hard to guess who would win each section because a few of them could have won it. I thought that Greg, Thomas and Val did very very well especially considering they had the least amount of experience. Their lack of experience wasn’t evident during their bouts. Fair play to them for giving it a go when it would have been easy for them not to have. We hope it has left you wanting to get stuck back in again soon guys.
The women’s coloured belt and women’s black belt sections took place downstairs so I didn’t get to see them either. I am looking forward to having a look at the video footage because I could hear the cheering upstairs while I was refereeing. It’s great that we have a good few female competitors when other clubs struggle to get women involved. I would love to see more of our female members giving it a go. What’s that song that is being played everywhere at the moment? Oh yeah….’Here come the girls, girls, girls, din a din din dah din… - okay moving on!
The standard in the men’s black belt sections was very high and yet they are not even properly competitive with each other. You’ll see from the pictures that there were some excellent kicks thrown as well as combinations. As I said on the day, fair play to all the black belts who were prepared to compete in front of their students. This is rare in Martial Arts. Plus they helped to set up everything at the Dojo the evening before and then helped to run the event all day before competing themselves.
It was the smoothest Battle of the Dojo we have held so far. We ran a little overtime but everything went fairly quickly. Even though there were tough fights, there were no injuries. These events take a fair bit of work and organizing to get off the ground and for a small club competition, it was definitely the most professional competition we have attended this year.
It really is amazing when the reffing is done in an unbiased and professional fashion, so thank you to all the MAI referees who did an excellent job:
Keith Quinn, Kiefer Crosbie, Stephen Large, Louise O’Donnell, Colm O’Griobhtha, Robert Mikulic and moi!
The camera incident:
I left my digital camera fresh with a new 4 GB memory card upstairs in the Dojo the night before, ready to take loads of pictures of the event. The day of the event I noticed it missing and I was going mad because I remembered leaving it there and I was convinced it was nicked. Obviously this upset me but more so because nothing has ever been stolen from MAI since we opened our first Dojo! I’m glad I didn’t insist on searching everyone because when I got home the camera was miraculously found in a bag! Without mentioning any names (starts with ‘L’), someone brought it home because they thought it could get stolen! It all worked out great though because the pictures taken were way better than my camera could have gotten.
Thank you to the photographers:
Thomas Grych’s lady friend, Marek’s brother and Jonathan O’Brien.
Thanks also to the time keepers and score keepers:
Geoffrey Kavanagh, Eddie Lawlor, Ado Pullan.
And thanks to Viktor Perets and Daire Byrne who helped to get the Dojo ready.
Finally, thank you to all the competitors for giving it a go and all the spectators and supporters who were in attendance.
Okay, time for a little bit of negativity:
I was surprised that certain people didn’t give the competition a go even though they were ready. Some people are that afraid of losing that they won’t give themselves the opportunity to win or to improve. Hopefully the next Battle of the Dojo will encourage more people to give it go. After all, that’s why we run them, to give people good competitive experience in a safe and friendly environment.
I’m already looking forward to the next ‘Battle of the Dojo’, which will be even better because we have a few new ideas.
Congratulations to all competitors. Here are the full results:
Kid’s Continuous Kickboxing:
1st: Glenn Lawlor
2nd: James O’Flynn
Kid’s Points Kickboxing:
1st: James O’Flynn
2nd: Glenn Lawlor
Kid’s Submission Grappling:
1st: Glenn Lawlor
2nd: James O’Flynn
Battle of the Dojo 2008 Kid’s Grand Champion:
Glenn Lawlor
Teen’s Coloured Belts Continuous Kickboxing:
1st: Geoffrey Kavanagh
2nd: Stuart Kirwan
3rd: Eddie Lawlor
Teen’s Coloured Belts Points Kickboxing:
1st: Eddie Lawlor
2nd: Viktor Perets
3rd: Stuart Kirwan
Teen’s Coloured Belts Submission Grappling:
1st: Stuart Kirwan
2nd: Eddie Lawlor
3rd: Viktor Perets
Battle of the Dojo 2008 Teen’s Coloured Belts Grand Champion:
Stuart Kirwan
Women’s Coloured Belts Continuous Kickboxing:
1st: Jenny Galander
2nd: Georgie Maher
3rd: Caroline Clifford
Women’s Coloured Belts Points Kickboxing:
1st: Caroline Clifford
2nd: Georgie Maher
3rd: Jenny Galander
Battle of the Dojo 2008 Women’s Coloured Belts Grand Champion:
Caroline Clifford
Men’s Coloured Belts Continuous Kickboxing:
1st: Stephen Walsh
2nd: Ciaran Skerry
3rd: Paul Kavanagh
Men’s Coloured Belts Points Kickboxing:
1st: James Cramer
2nd: Ciaran Skerry
3rd: Stephen Walsh
Men’s Coloured Belts Submission Grappling:
1st: Paul Kavanagh
2nd: Roman Tallas
3rd: Greg Byrne
Battle of the Dojo 2008 Men’s Coloured Belts Grand Champion:
James Cramer
Women’s Black Belt Continuous Kickboxing:
1st: Louise Quinn
2nd: Sinead Courtney
3rd: Orla Day
Women’s Black Belt Points Kickboxing:
1st: Louise Quinn
2nd: Sinead Courtney
3rd: Orla Day
Women’s All Belts Submission Grappling:
1st: Louise Quinn
2nd: Jenny Galander
3rd: Sinead Courtney
Battle of the Dojo 2008 Women’s Black Belt Grand Champion:
Louise Quinn
Men’s Black Belt Continuous Kickboxing:
1st: Keith Quinn
2nd: Kiefer Crosbie
3rd: Stephen Large
Men’s Black Belt Points Kickboxing:
1st: Colm O’Griobhtha
2nd: Kiefer Crosbie
3rd: Keith Quinn
Men’s Black Belt Submission Grappling:
1st: Keith Quinn
2nd: Colm O’Griobhtha
3rd: Kiefer Crosbie
Battle of the Dojo 2008 Men’s Black Belt Grand Champion:
Keith Quinn
Check out the pictures here: Battle of the Dojo 7 photos.
Stay tuned for some video clips soon.
Very well done again to all competitors.
Robert Devane
 Stephen & Kiefer. |
 Robert awards Keith. |
 The audience. |
 Caroline is Champ. |
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