Less than a month to go until the British Open Kata Championships
The British Open Kata Championships are being held at Samurai Judo Club in Kidderminster this year on October 4th 2015. The event has full kata categories for seniors alongside modified partial kata categories for U16 and U12 players.
Kata is an interesting part of judo in its own right, but also an excellent way of learning and improving judo skills which can be used in competition. Judo players who are familiar with the kata can come and have a go – it’s great opportunity to learn and get feedback.
Earlier this year, Samurai put on a three mat simultaneous kata display with their younger players at the British Schools Championships in Sheffield. Their kata players include current British Champions in contest judo Darcie Hancocks and James Hemer – last year Darcie partnered club-mate Leah Grosvenor to take silver in two katas at the British Kata Open.
Two weeks later they were fighting against each other in the final of the British Championships in contest judo. The Sheffield display team also included Becky Hobby, who spent the rest of the morning refereeing, to then put her judo kit back on to take a gold medal in the afternoon.
Another referee to show good all-round ability was National A Referee, Mike Gualtieri, who was amongst the medallists at last year’s British Open Kata Championships.
Recent years of the British Open Kata Championships have seen entries from France, Holland, Germany, Sweden and Belgium and there have been further enquiries about this year’s event from Italy and Poland.
