M.A.I. at the Irish Cup 2008. Ju-Jitsu & Karate Competition.
I swore a long time ago that I would never attend these Irish competitions again. Despite my youthful appearance (watch it!), I entered my first Irish tournament 18 years ago and I do find them very hard to attend today because I have been to some of the biggest ones in the world. The bad & biased refereeing gets highly annoying after attending this many tournaments over this length of time. My sole interest at this stage is to help everyone in M.A.I. gain valuable competitive experience and we did just that.
The very long day started for most of us before 9am. The Ju-Jitsu sections were on first and for the first time ever, M.A.I. decided to enter them and give it a go. We were completely unfamiliar with the rules as they didn’t even resemble MMA competition. There were a lot of shocked people there because we had more competitors in those sections than any other club. One referee told me it was the biggest Ju-Jitsu entry since they started that competition 12 years ago. I can safely say that after reading the rules several times and watching all of the fights, I still cannot figure out the rules. I don’t think I was the only one because the referees in each of the rings used a completely different scoring system. The Black Belt ladies section was crazy and allowed full force face punches in comparison to the men’s section barely allowing any face contact. I feel sorry for one of the female competitors because our girls will seek their next opportunity and the element of surprise won’t be on her side. I was sure we won certain matches and was very surprised by the scoring but I wasn’t in a position to refute any decisions. All of this didn’t matter to any of us because we only entered for a bit of a laugh and we still came away with loads of medals and wins. I was very happy for Kiefer winning the Grand Championship trophy because he was so disappointed when he didn’t get a fight at the recent MMA Inter Club competition we held.
The long day continued on and thankfully the Karate sections eventually started because I thought I was going to drop kick the next person to ask ‘When does my section start?’ We are mainly a Kickboxing club and the emphasis in the points fighting sections was definitely a little more Karate based. Everyone adapted fairly quickly as soon as it was obvious that reverse punches were the favoured strikes. There were long moments of waiting and then suddenly everyone seemed to be on the mats fighting all at the same time. I must have run at least a mini marathon throughout the day. The support from everyone was really excellent and there were several coaches helping on the day. It was the best shown support at a competition ever from all M.A.I. members.
I was really disgusted that a certain fighting area wouldn’t allow any coaching. In all of my above listed years of attending competitions, I have never encountered such a stupid ruling and the fact that it only happened in the one area suggests that the referee’s there didn’t have a clue. They must have found our supportive members and coaches to be too intimidating for them. Poor Geoffrey Kavanagh (12 years old) was deducted a point because Instructor Keith Quinn cheered him on. I wish I had been at that fighting area when that happened. Actually, it was better that I wasn’t. I was coaching our 8 year olds at the time; Dennis, James & Glenn. They were exceptional. Especially considering it was the worst reffed section of the day. All bouts were more like continuous than points and the contact was quite hard too. What’s that advert go like again? Oh yeah….the refs should have gone to spec savers!
Three of the biggest M.A.I. culprits of the ‘when am I on?’ annoyance actually missed their section and didn’t get to compete. Excuses were plenty but learn from your mistake fellas. We were all very disappointed they didn’t get to compete and I won’t mention any names in order to save them further embarrassment.
I can’t comment on everyone’s fights because I didn’t get to see them all with all the rushing around. I would like to mention Eddie Lawlor’s division though. Eddie came up against 2 very experienced fighters in his section and even though they were a bit smaller than him, they had already beaten larger opponents with ease. Eddie fought very smartly and got 1st place. The reason I mention Eddie’s section is because it was only later in the day that I discovered that the main referee who had reffed that section was the coach of the 2 boys! This happened throughout the day. Referees judging on fights that their own students were competing in. Ref award of the day would have to go to the referee who told me he hasn’t trained in 2 years - sad!
It was great to have a few members of our M.A.I. crew competing for the first time and a special mention goes out to them because it can be very intimidating and nerve wrecking. They all fought very well. In fact, there wasn’t one fighter that I thought under performed on the day. Yes, everyone is capable of more but I was very happy with how everyone fought.
The Black Belt sections started at around 6pm and I felt sorry for our lads & ladies because they had arrived earlier than everyone else, already competed in Ju-Jitsu and they were very involved coaching, cheering and running around for all of our other competitors. Again, all of them were great and I’m very proud of each one of them. They are all willing to compete in front of their own students, which is no easy task. The absolutely amazing thing is that our Black Belt instructors have fought in only 2 to 5 competitions and yet they are able to hold their own with and beat competitors with international experience who have competed in upwards of 40 competitions. How is this possible? It is obviously due to our hard training, superb facilities and our very high level of instruction. Our Black Belts and Team MAI have only started competing since 2007!
While looking back at the video footage, it is very obvious that when 2 fighters clashed, the points allocation was always given against us. Funny that. Must be a coincidence huh?! I couldn’t help wondering if the referees were blind, stupid or simply biased. Probably all three. We can’t cry about the refereeing though because we knew it was going to be like that before we entered plus in the long run, it will make M.A.I. fighters faster and stronger and have even cleaner technique. So, ultimately the bad refereeing will make us even better. We still came away with loads of medals.
We had an unprecedented 31 M.A.I. fighters compete and we came away with a grand total of 29 medals. An absolutely excellent achievement. The future is extremely bright for Martial Arts Incorporated and all of our hard training and highly talented Martial Artists.
Thanks to all of our supporters and especially those that were able to make it on the day. Many thanks to everyone who helped take the pictures and record the fights.
Here are the full results:
Ju-Jitsu Randori
Claire Hanley – Women’s Brown & Black Belt – 1st Place
Louise Quinn – Women’s Brown & Black Belt – 3rd Place
Sinead Courtney – Women’s Brown & Black Belt – 3rd Place
Geoffrey Kavanagh – Boy’s Coloured Belts – 1st Place
Victor Perets - Boy’s Coloured Belts – 2nd Place
Alan Lee - Boy’s Coloured Belts – 3rd Place
Stuart Kirwan - Teen’s Coloured Belts – 2nd Place
Robert Mikulic – Men’s Up to Brown Belt – 1st Place
Mark Masterson - Men’s Up to Brown Belt – 2nd Place
Steven Large - Men’s Up to Brown Belt – 3rd Place
Ado Pullan- Men’s Up to Brown Belt – 3rd Place
Kiefer Crosbie – Men’s Black Belts – Grand Champion
Kiefer Crosbie – Men’s Black Belts – 1st Place
Keith Quinn – Men’s Black Belts – 2nd Place
Karate
James O’Flynn – Boy’s – 3rd Place
Dennis Dusmetov – Boy’s – 3rd Place
Leanne Lawlor – Girls Teen’s – 2nd Place
Eddie Lawlor – Boy’s Teen’s – 1st Place
Ciaran Skerry – Men’s White/Yellow Belts – 1st Place
Paul Kosmala – Men’s Coloured Belts – 3rd Place
Alan Donnelly – Men’s Coloured Belts – 3rd Place
Jenny Galander – Women’s Coloured Belts – 2nd Place
Caroline Clifford – Women’s Coloured Belts – 3rd Place
Claire Hanley – Women’s Brown Belts – 1st Place
Stephen Walsh – Men’s Brown Belts – 1st Place
Louise Quinn – Women’s Black Belts – 2nd Place
Sinead Courtney – Women’s Veteran Black Belts – 1st Place
Louise O’Donnell – Women’s Veteran Black Belts – 2nd Place
Keith Quinn – Men’s Black Belts – 2nd Place
Our goal to gain experience was fully achieved. Very well done and congratulations to all M.A.I. competitors.
Robert Devane
 A happy Kiefer. |
 Sly appears! |
 Eddie wins. |
 Our Black Belts. |
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