Highlights from Adrenaline Rush, January 26-27

Update - Seran's dad, Umakanth, has posted his photos (of the junior black belts) from the tournament here.

Please forgive my limited reporting on our own Adrenaline Rush tournament held at the Bell Sensplex last Saturday and Sunday. Most of the time, I was competing or judging at the same time as everyone and the spacious facility we had made it difficult to follow events more then one ring away.

This year, to make the tournament run smoother, the weapons and light contact contious events we held Saturday night with kata and point fighting on Sunday. While this was not a big problem for local competitors, many from Montreal and Quebec told me they really prefer having all events on one day - I think this accounted for the reduced attendance from previous years.

Saturday Continous Fighting
However, for those competing in continous and other events, the format was very helpful, providing competitors with a night's rest. For, it certainly was needed, as fighting 2 x 2 minute rounds was extremely tiring. This was the first time many of us (Selina, Imran, Lynn, Pat and Darien) in the kickboxing program have competed in light contact. Jordan and Simon are old pros now, having fought at a couple of tournaments (and Jordan won gold at the 2007 Worlds!).

Unfortunately, there were no old guy divisions this year and I was a little nervous fighting in the adult men (18+) -70 Kg category. I really enjoyed my fight (winning helps) and will definitely try it again. Pat fought really strongly in the next weight category up and lost a close fight.

Speaking of no old guy divisions, Simon got to fight huge guy in his 20's that was on the national team - he must have been at least 6'5", with practically no body fat. To great cheers from the crowd, Simon fought really well (and bravely!), but lost his match. The next day, Sean would luck out and get to face the same guy (who's still a brown belt?) in point fighting.

Like last week, Lynn lucked out and her first continous fight was against Anastasia Oudatchina, who won gold at the 2007 WKA Worlds. She lost, but was very competitive against very strong opponent. These 2 are sure to meet again (actually, they did again on Sunday, when Lynn lost to Anastasia in a close point fight).

Jordan beat Alexa Littleton in her first fight, before losing to Selina in the final. Imran fought very well, winning his first two fights, before losing in the final as a result of too many warnings for hitting to the head. Darien got 2nd in continuous.

Saturday Weapons
Unfortunately, I did not see these events, but Simon won 18+ weapons with Matt and John tying for 2nd - I was told John was really solid in his first weapons event. Imran dropped his bo in weapons, but went on to win musical weapons with great new music. James finished 2nd to Marie-Eve in musical weapons. Jordan got 4th in weapons.

As luck would have it, Alison and I got to compete against James and Marie-Eve Dicaire in the 18+ weapons division. They also threw in Taylor for good measure to stack the odds against us. I did get lucky when James had a slight bobble and then went on get the crowd to cheer me - I tied with Marie-Eve for 1st before losing the tie-breaker.

Sunday
Matt "Scarface" Dixon was on fire when he met an old nemisis in the pointfighting final - Michel Gagnon from Sunfuki. Just as he tied the fight 2-2, the velcro from Michel's glove caught Matt in the chin, putting a deep cut that would require stitches after a very long wait in the hospital. Michel was disqaulified and Matt won (I know Matt would have preferred to just close the cut and continue the fight, but he didn't have his glue gun with him).

Jay did really well in fighting, beating Simon in the fight for 3rd. Simon won in kata and went on to win the kata grands. Nancy and Heather met in the fighting final, with Heather winning a close one. After a long break from competing, Ali came back with a vengence and won in both kata and pointfighting.

Alison placed 2nd in kata to Mike Palitti (I got 4th) and went on to fight bravely in the 18-34 category against Lacy! Imran placed 2nd in kata and lost his fight against Erik Depatie from Sunfuki. Selina won in pointfighting. Taylor got 2nd in fighting, Darien got 4th in fighting, and Jordan got 2nd in both fighting and kata.

I will update this post later with photos, more highlights, and results. Please email me with results at normancw@rogers.com - don't forget that the results from the blog are used to tabulate the competitors of the year awards.