2007 ITFNZ Top Ten Tournament #1 - March

Today was the first in the 2007 ITFNZ Top Ten series tournaments held at the Auckland Netball Centre, Morrin Road, Mt Wellington. The tournament is for over 15 year olds. There were just over 50 competitors entered including most of the Junior World Champ team (well those located between Rotorua and Kerikeri anyway). It was a good day with intensive patterns and sparring competition amongst the black belts. Several bouts included members from the junior and senior world champ teams competing against each other for the first time this year. After lunch the men’s sparring attracted quite an audience ring side to watch and cheer on some very intensive sparring. Results will be posted on the official site soon. Patterns photos People photos Sparring photos Doug's picks of the pix All selected photos from the tournament

Taupo Camp - Sunday 4/3/2007

[Unfortunately the photos embedded in this article are no longer accessible so I've removed the broken image links. All photosfrom the day are in the link at the bottom of the article - Doug August 2020]

7am - "Everyone up" shouts Mr Ballard. I'd been awake for a while listening to Sunday slowly coming to life (referring to the birds chirping and a tiny bit of traffic noise) and was up like a shot. Remarkably the boys weren't too slow getting up either. I enquired about how Jeremy felt after eating almost 2 litres of ice cream in last night’s contest. “Not bad, I chucked about half of it up last night before I went to bed. Stomach still feels full though”. Gross.
After breakfast Mr Ballard informed the team “pack your gear, tidy up this place then get into your doboks and get over to the gym by 8.15am”

Injuries There have been a couple of injuries in the last week. Paige was hit by a car on Tuesday when crossing the road from her school bus. She has a fractured arm (in plaster from hand to above her elbow) and a broken nose plus bruising. Candice dislocated her shoulder in Saturday while sparring so she was wearing a sling last night and today. And let’s not forget Mr Burr’s KO (read about that in the previous article below). Today he was in a neck brace as well as his dobok but it didn’t slow him down, much to some of the parent’s consternation!

We learnt that he'd shared his ambulance ride to Rotorua hospital with the man with a broken arm who had been hit by a truck, along with his wife who was killed. "He was pretty drugged up on pain killers" said Mr Burr. The accident was all over the papers and we read about it on the internet. The accident happened only a few hundred metres up Spa road from where we were at camp.

On this morning’s agenda was power and specialty (overhead kick) for those involved in these events with those not doing this practicing patterns and sparring drills.

Mr Pellow was up before 5am and drive down for the morning’s training. He hadn’t been able to make it on Friday night and Saturday due to a funeral he attended. Everyone really appreciated this effort!

Next was what everyone had been looking forward to (not). Fitness test time! Taken by Mr Burr (even worse). “What we’re doing today are 4/5/4’s” said Mr Burr. Stewie (above) made some smart comment (like usual) and Mr Burr retorted “ok then, it’s now 4/5/6’s!”. After an explanation of how to do it, with lots of questions asked to burn time they were into it. I took a few pictures while the faces reddened but the team didn’t really didn’t look too bad. Those of us sitting down on the sidelines thought it looked pretty easy really. Ah..hem.

Back over to the cookhouse for the final pep-talk from Mr Ballard, Mr Pellow, Mr Burr and Mr Yates. The coaches were pretty impressed with the sparring on Saturday and, given the last camp was only 3 weeks ago, thought the team had come a long way. They also congratulated the team for their co-operation, support of each other and team spirit which they felt was pretty awesome.
Mr Ballard announced that Ross Black, who has continued to train with the team since the first camp had improved to a level that they felt he had earned a place on the team to take the remaining position in hyper-weight sparring.

Also announced was the boy’s team patterns selection. Confirmed were Jeremy Hanna, Matt Hartigan, Johs van Pierce, Jason Fraser, Ethan Parker. And still to battle it out for the 6th man position are Shane Black and Brad Wickman.

Just in case the team were feeling a bit cocky Mr Yates handed out the raffle tickets (150 each) for all to sell prior to the April camp. This is to raise funds to pay for the apparel. Paige was chastised for being the last person to get her documentation in – she had left it at home by mistake - and Mr Burr was also chastised by parents for not looking after himself and resting up.

We all headed for home – now raining – tired, a bit sore, but all eager to return again for more in a month’s time.

The weekend's photos are here.

Taupo Camp - Saturday evening - a show of character and guts

After dinner of sausages, steak, baked spud, cole slaw, mixed veges and pasta followed by ice cream (sounding good?) Mr Burr arrived back from the hospital - still in his dobok - to a standing ovation.
Fortunately everything was checked out at the hospital and, apart from the concussion, Mr Burr is ok. He gave Shane a hug and spent a few minutes telling him how good the fight was and not to worry about the KO. It's just one of those things that can happen.

Meanwhile there were a couple of challenges being dealt to. Michael's hair was being straightened by a swag of the girls with straightening tongs and, after an hour or so, seemed to be having quite a bit of success.
Candice had travelled down to Taupo with the Hanna's and on the journey she and Jeremy talked about how much they could eat. This sowed the seeds of a challenge which was then to play out in front of us all. After a visit to the supermarket and a good hearty dinner each presented the other with a 2 litre tub of ice cream. The challenge... first to finish wins. The rules... if any ice cream comes up during the challenge it has to go back down or you are disqualified. After about 20 minutes into the challenge they were both very cold - this was not what they expected. Brain freeze had been a problem too. Wrapped in duvets they battled on although when they got down to about a cup full of ice cream left, they both slowed almost to a halt. Suddenly Candice let rip and a good plateful was returned to the 2 litre container. Meanwhile Jeremy was eating a spoon full at a time then hanging his head over a bucket but didn't throw up. Candice refused to return the ice cream to where it had come from and pulled out. After another 10 minutes or so Jeremy gave up. There was so little ice cream left - about a cup full - I couldn't believe that he just gave up. But he couldn't move and couldn't squeeze any more in. Roll on the fitness test tomorrow!!

See the gory details here

Boys playing in the gym during the evening...

Taupo Camp - Saturday 3/3/2007

We woke early this morning to the sound of the gun shot announcing the start of the Taupo Iron Man. The town is packed out with thousands of supporters for the event.
The camp started Saturday morning with a 7am wakeup followed by breakfast and over to the gym for a fun warmup for the day. This was followed with sparring drills creating many sweaty red faces. Next was 2x2 minute sparring rounds with each junior team member facing a senior apponent from a handful of "ring ins" and the coaching d management team.
The juniors have definately lifted their sparring up a level since the last camp showing more confidence and agression in the ring.
Unfortunately Mr Burr, after several bouts, was ko'd while sparring with Shane. He took a kick to the side of the head then fell back onto the mat. He came around after a few minutes and appears to be ok although we called an ambulance and they've taken him into Rotorua hospital for a scan and observation.
It's just after lunch time now and everyone is heading back over to the gym to continue. This afternoon seem more sparring then specialty followed by power.
Check out the photos here...