Student Nationals in Leeds

 

After some ‘issues’ with our transportation to Leeds that I’m not going to go into, only one car load of people were able to go. The lucky 5 being Oz (The driver), Fabian (The pain master), me (The president), Man (The man) and Jack (Another man). This also meant squeezing into Oz’s very little car and after picking up our kit from the union it didn’t take long for us to get underway. The motorways seemed very long and boring and I thought I was delusional when I saw a police car reversing in the same direction as us on the other side of the motorway, but it turns out it was just a bad ass crash. We traveled for what seemed like forever and after stopping at a service station we decided that we would play the name game with celebrities name’s for a bit to keep us entertained. Man got completely obsessed with the game and almost 2½ hours later we finally got to Leeds after naming probably every celebrity ever to exist. (Rumor has it; Man’s is still playing that same game today) It is also important that I mention the massage chair (which apparently gave Jack the cheeky finger!) was ridiculously comfortable and was a bargain at £1 for 5 minutes, even Fabian liked it!

We then arrived in Leeds, dropped off our stuff at the travel lodge and then went into Leeds city centre to get some munch. Half a chicken and some of the Chef’s special (Spunkalicious) mayonnaise later we went back to the travel lodge to get some well needed sleep.

The next day after getting no sleep at all because I didn’t have a cover and it was freezing! We headed back into Leeds Uni to get ready for the competition. Everyone weighed in and began their warm up’s for the tournament. Jack then dumped us for his nice looking black belt lady friend from Birmingham who won practically everything she could on the day (good job to her) and made us all look crap, cheers.

Now the fights were starting to begin and Oz was up first in the heavyweight division, he defeated his first opponent quite comfortably with some nice turning kicks and then he lost to a bigger boy in the next round, who had longer legs than him and used them well! The next fight for Oz didn’t go so well either and he took another defeat to knock him out of the competition, although he did do good for his first tournament and will hopefully take the experience he gained with him to future competitions.

Man was up next on the adjacent mat, walked through his first fight easily and then impressed everyone with a superb back hook kick on his next opponents head, but failed to follow it up and to everyone’s disappointment lost the following fights and didn’t come home with a medal either. Next it was the blue belts and Steve won his way to the final comfortable where he then lost and came home with a silver medal.

Finally Jack stepped up and after some intense fighting he battled into the final and then at the end of the final the judges called it a draw! So, Jack had to do even more fighting and was completely shattered by the end of it but managed to win in the extra time and came home with a gold medal from the black belt category! Very good job Jack! (But not with your patterns or breaking again, hehe whoops!)

We then went for a couple of drinks and a curry with some of the people we had met from Leeds and one very late, short supplied but quite yummy (and for Fabian free) curry later we headed back to the Travel Lodge to prepare for the next day.

The next day (or Sunday even) was the WTF tournament (yesterday’s tournament was ITF) and we watched some of the patterns which weren’t very good, not that I would know hehe, before preparing for the sparring competition. Today (the next day, Sunday or today even) only Steve (me) was competing and he won the first round fight very easily (opponent didn’t turn up) and then won again (against a real opponent this time) to proceed to the quarter final. Steve then won again by KO (yes I knocked someone out and they celebrated it, boner!) but lost in the semi-finals and won only a bronze medal.

We then headed straight back home to Portsmouth and on the way home stopped because Oz needed to eat 2 Super Size Big Mac meals and another Big Mac (that, is a lot of Big Mac) Man Revolted against his eating hours by devouring 2 fish sandwiches! Oh my… We then decided never to play the name game again and got back on the road.

A little while later, Oz nearly crashed the car into a mentalist driver who decided to brake very sharply in front of him causing us to skid all over the road (at like 80 odd mph), so we had to pull in to check out the tires because there was some very weird vibrating going on in the car. We randomly parked in a service station without noticing at all that we were next to an RAC van! The RAC man from the van (who may I mention is actually a hero, I’m such a fan) changed the tires for us, so we took his picture. We then headed back home, again, and after hours of traveling finally arrived back in Portsmouth.

Overall the weekend was great fun and although it was a shame that only a part of the team attended, we still had a great time. Thanks to Oz for driving us at the last minute and Fabian for teaching us in the ancient arts of feeling pain, lots of pain.

Click here for the videos

Medals:

Jack Miles – Gold (ITF)

Stephen Burt – Silver (ITF) & Bronze (WTF)