2018 Rick Littlewood Open - Senior Competition

As mentioned in my post about the kids competition, this year's edition of the Rick Littlewood was the first edition of our end of year competition after Rick's passing in July this year. This year's edition featured members from Big Judo, AucklandBJJ, Howick Judo and of course, the home team, University. The competition featured three phases, with the women's Round Robin, the men's tournament and (Rick's favourite), the team battle.

The women's round robin featured three up and comers from University Judo, high school student Jaime, Rick's granddaughter Sophia, and Fern, a BJJer (and no-gi national champion) who joined us early this year. Fern ended up winning two close fights to win the division, being surprised with her green belt at the end to commemorate her hard work on the mat throughout the year. Clearly she was hiding the lethal uchimata she learned from her recent trip to Japan.

The men's tournament was open-weight, and was won by our visitor from Daishin Judo Osaka, Kazuma Handa, who has been living in New Zealand and working in Kura over the past year to improve his English. Second place went to Noah from Big Judo, a high school student who does extra trainings with us on a regular basis, while the bronze medals went to Kane White (who beat two black belts on his way to the bronze and will hopefully compete next year and earn his shodan) and James McCombe (our kids coach).

To cap off the day, we had a quick Survivor Series-style team competition, with a team of four members from University Judo versus a team of visitors (combined from Daishin, Big Judo and Howick). James got University off to a hot start with a win before Kazuma, fresh from his tournament win, eliminated James, Quentin and Garth. Ben managed to even things out for University, with newaza wins over Kazuma and Noah before falling to Craig from Howick in the last match.

Overall, the competition was a success, with all the attendees enjoying a good feed upstairs, with plenty of lamb provided for everyone. Special thanks to Marin for organising the lamb and for Igor for preparing the set up. If anyone has any other videos or photos worth uploading, feel free to send or share via Cloud/Drive to aucklandunijudo@gmail.com