Proud Parents

As mentioned here, the boys have decided that their sport of choice if Judo.
We have joined a wonderful caring club who are very proud of all their members. They support them at all times and take pride in doing so.
The boys have only been doing Judo for just over 11 weeks now, all of the last school term.

3 weeks ago they had a Fun Day at our Judo Club.
This involved having registrations from over 100 children from all over the Waikato region.
Ben and Alex insisted that they take part, so Steve took them along. They weighed in at 19kg & 21kg and were deemed as the youngest and lightest in the competition, but that didn't matter, they still got classed as 'PeeWees' and got to fight 2 others in their class.

Quick pep talk from Sensei

Got to do my warm ups

Man these people are all so big!

Anyone notice how much smaller I am to everyone else?

Sadly with the lack on numbers in this class Ben and Alex had to fight each other and with only 4 in the class only 3 could get a placing.
Ben walked  away with a Bronze Medal and Alex got a Certificate of Participation.

They both thoroughly enjoyed the tournament and learnt a lot.

We soon found out that Tauranga Judo Club was also going to hold a Fun Day and the boys decided that they wanted to be part of this as well.
What we didn't work out at the time was that this was going to involve a 6am start to get to the venue!
With a nice long earlier morning drive we arrived at the venue, where there were 60 other kids all ready to commence fighting.

After weigh in, it was established that the boys both came in the U24kg Class, so sadly, again they had to fight each other!

There were 6 in the class and Ben & Alex started the whole day off by being the first fight of the day. Ben won, but not before his little brother gave him a good fight for his money.
They both went on to have some great fights.
Alex sadly did not win any of his fights but he did score some points in some of his fights, so all was not in vain, he fought very well and give him a little more weight and maybe some height and he will whip them next time.

As for Ben, well he managed to walk in and just win all 4 of his fights, only one of the 6 to do that, so he walked away with 1st Place, yes that is right, he got Gold Medal in this tournament.

WE are so proud, he did an awesome job on the mats scoring some good points in his fights and working hard for his wins.

Mum managed to drive up from Rotorua to watch the boys fight, first time she has ever seen them fight, although it is also the first time I have seen them in a Tournament as I was away for their last one.
She was not disappointed either, and she was cheering moves to them during the fight just like a awesome Grandmother should do along with 2 very proud parents.
The other parents there kept laughing at me cause I was yelling so much during their fights! But everyone was cheering for them during their fights, they were the youngest and smallest from our club and it was obvious that everyone was very proud to sit and watch them fight.

Well done boys, you are awesome and we are very proud of you.
Do you think you can take on Tokoroa in September?