Okuri Judo Club

Busy weekend for OJC, we had team members at two different events, the Go Shibata at Texas A&M in College Station and the 19th Annual Fukuda Invitational Kata Championships in San Jose, CA.  
 
The team traveling to College Station was smaller than originally hoped, but we ended up 7 strong with two juniors, Nathan and Matthew Kearney and five seniors, Debi Brantner, Chris Martin, Melinda Meche, Akin Kurtulan, and Onur Kurtulan.
 
Matthew started off the day with two nice ippons, drop seoi and morote gari. He took gold. Matthew earned Texas All-Star status with his win. He is the first OJC in recent years to earn this honor. Congrats!
 
Nathan followed with a grudge match against a brown belt he has fought several times. Nathan went 1-2 against the brown belt. I know that Nathan is not happy with his silver medal, but he made some progress in learning how to play him. I feel confident Nathan will work his way towards beating this guy.
 
Melinda was the first senior to play. She had two matches in the novice division, winning both by ippon. She dominated her opponent and ended up with pins both matches. I'm sure her opponent was feeling some discomfort the next day. Melinda punished her a couple of times and left some mat imprints on her face. Melinda did some exhibition fights in the senior division, fighting two black belts. She went 1-2. Gold was Melinda's color of the day.
 
Chris fought novice. Out of the OJC members, he did have the most in his division with 10 guys.
Being his third tournament, I think some things finally clicked for him. His first match was quick, but we talked about some things and his next match went much better. He was more patient and took his time gripping. He stop a couple of throws and tried a few of his own. No hardware this time around, but his time is coming.
 
Debi didn't have anyone in novice to play, so she chose to move up to fight seniors. She fought two fights and did a good job. She did escape a pin and has some things to work on for next time. I told her to start working with some of the higher belts to get some experience against black belts. You guys look out, she's out to learn how to beat this girl! For you guys keeping track of the medals, put Debi down for silver.
 
Onur was next up. He had 6 in his division. He was very nervous since he hadn't competed in 10 years. His first fight he was bouncing a lot and I could tell he was nervous. I told Akin we just need a win the first round and he'll calm down. He won the first match by ippon. The next round he fought against a black belt from A&M. I think he under estimated Onur a little. Onur threw him for ippon, putting him in the gold medal match. In the third match Onur was finally settling down a little bit he even did some mat work and held the guy down for 17 seconds. Being Onur... a flashy ippon is way better than mat work... he threw the guy with an ippon in the next exchange, winning his first gold medal on the Onur comeback tour of 2007.
 
Akin always plays last and this tournament was no exception. This was Akin's second tourney back in the 81kg division. He had three fights and won all three of them. He threw Uchi Mata few times, a lot of foot sweeps, and a really nice tomoe nage. Over the years, I have learned that Akin's first fight is a warm up match. He tends to be a little wary and needs some time to feel things out. Once the first fight was done, we had a win and he was ready to go. The second fight was a little frustrating for me as the coach because I kept saying, "feet" and I never got any "feet."  FINALLY!!! He threw some "feet" and guess what happened... an IPPON. I kinda got on to him about that one but he said he was wearing the guy down a little bit. The next fight was against a tough guy from MS. Akin threw him with a really nice Tomoe Nage that got a round of applause. It was a nice way to end the day.
 
While we were in College Station, Jolie and Terrie were across the country in San Jose, CA competing in the 19th Annual Fukuda Invitational Kata Championships. This is a tournament hosted by Sensei Fukuda. She has teams travel from just not across the country, but across oceans to compete in the event. Jolie and Terrie competed in the Katame No Kata and for the first time ever, the Ju No Kata. They won the silver in Katame No Kata and did not place in Ju No. They learned a lot and got to hang out with Thuy!!
 
 
Next tourney, is the Houston Open, November 3rd. This also the same date as the Benito Juarez in Mexico City. Akin will be traveling to Mexico to try to earn some points for the National Roster.