Moment of Madness heads to England
Jason recently headed to England to compete in the U-ITF World Champs…
Here is what went down.
After a couple of months of mud, sweat and tears ( mostly the latter) I was ready to leave for the champs. I have to say, prepping for a champs isn’t easy… Early morning sessions with Mark at Train Gym, late night sessions at my Taekwon-Do class in Pinetown under Sean Cremer and tonnes of strange and odd nightmares – including one where I dreamt that I had overslept on the day of departure… yeah – like sleeping was going to happen the night before I got onto a piece of metal which would hurl me halfway up the planet to England.
World Champs took place over the weekend of 1-4 August. Hosted by the English after South Korea had to cancel ( Pesky North Koreans and threats about war you see) – there were over 27 countries present, represented en masse! I would say at least a few hundred competitors – all of whom wanted to win a coveted medal… Including me… Although just wearing the green and gold was reward enough for me. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the USA , England, The Netherlands, Italy, Ireland and a host of other nations took to the mats for a couple of days of intense competition.
I entered sparring and power breaking ( breaking multiple boards with various techniques using the hand and foot) and qualified ( barely) the night before… So you can imagine the kind of sleep I got that night. After about a minute and a half’s sleep – I was woken up for the second day of competition…I managed to claw my way back to finish up only one point behind the two leaders – who had a break off for first and second. I screamed like the back tyre of a VW at the races after being informed that I had placed 3rd. I may have done some sort of bum wiggle dance too, but what goes on tour stays on tour…
The second event I took part in, was the male team power category – that is where each member of the team has one shot with a particular technique to break a set amount of boards… We placed 2nd – I am ridiculously happy about that feat as power has always been my favourite category – second only to sparring… Unfortunately due to injury (split my finger open, couldn’t feel my hand and foot or put pressure on my foot) I had to withdraw from sparring – which was a pity – it would have been nice to see how I fared among the world’s best sparrers…
Overall – I felt really humbled that I got to live and take in a personal dream of mine – to represent South African in a martial art that I love. I also got to snack on lots of hamburgers. I love hamburgers.
I have to give a massive shout out to all those who helped me get live out my dream. To those who sponsored me with funds, supported the ladies night, took a ticket in the draw for the whisky or who said “good luck”, thank you. I am truly humbled and blessed.
