Battle Zone 2013

 

The hardware

This weekend was the penultimate tourney before Italy. It was in Ottawa and it was called the BattleZone! It was a tough tourney for team Canada members and elite martial artists.

 10 kids including Sid participated from her club. Unfortunately since there were not enough competitors for an under 25kg weight class, Sid had to fight up one class in the under 30 kg division. These girls are mostly 10 years and up and weigh almost 20 lbs more than Sid. For continuous fighting, there was only one opponent, Mackenzie. She is a 10 year old blue belt from the club and she is amazing. Sid fought extremely well and we were all very proud of how she did.

 Lots of spin kicks, superman punches and offensive attacks on Mackenzie. We never see this stuff at the club when they are sparring. Sid is usually no match for Mackenzie but today she held her own.

Then it was forms and for the first time Sid did her Chuan'Fa form, which is a soft form. She was excellent!

 Last event was point fighting, again she fought up a division and showed the crowd why she was wearing the team Canada uniform! She was simply amazing and almost won her fight. It was tied after two minutes, 7 - 7 and with a two point spread required for a victory, the match went to a 11 - 9 win for her opponent. It was awesome to watch!

Sid took 4th in point and these are the girls she was fighting. And she took 2nd in continuous
It was a great day, tiring but so satisfying. Sid made it clear that she is determined to win at the worlds. If she fights in Italy the way she did this weekend there will be no stopping her. In forms none of the kids from our club placed, there were 13 girls and all the winners were the 12 year old black belts, however Sid did her kata really well and was really proud of her accomplishment.

Sunday morning was Team Canada training camp. It was sooooo cool. The best coaches and best marital artists in the country all in one place to help these kids. First up was a forms training session.

 

 

  Coaches were walking around and correcting all the forms. Here a coach watches her doing Kata 2, a hard form. She truly loves to perform!

 

 

 Then it was on to heavy duty conditioning. Squats, burpees, pushups, situps. Sigung had them well prepared and well conditioned!

Here they teach team Canada kids how to fly ;)

Whooooo hooooo there she goes.

Sit ups and crunches done in all kinds of new ways!

 Of course there are always push ups and burpees to round out the training.

 Next was fighting. Sid was paired up with Mataje who she has fought in three competitions. They have become fast friends and fight in the same weight division because they are actually the same size!

 As it happens Mataje is traveling to Italy on the same flight as us so the girls will have tons of time to bond!

Some of the training staff. On the left is a champion full contact fighter, Steve "Nasty" Anderson. Apparently he beat Sigung in the Boston Nationals in 1988 :), next is Phil (not sure of his last name), Mike Bernardo and Sigung. Missing are John and Peter Douvrais. All these guys are world champions and previous team Canada members and our kids coaches. We are really lucky!

It was a great weekend and a put a big smile on all our faces to see such hard work and dedication pay off for Sid. Next stop is her belt test. I suspect it will be coming in the next few weeks, Sigung wanted to wait and see how she did at this tourney. We are all so proud of her!