Hong Kong Trip 2007

Back in April 2007, Master Oldham VIII (President and Founder of the GTUK) kindly invited members from Essential Blackbelt Academies to Hong Kong to compete in the Cyberport Cup! This friendly tournament was organised by Mr Darren Holmes IV (Who lives and works in Hong Kong). Due to the short notice, only three members were able to make the trip. Mr Bridges III, Jordan (5th Kup) and Jordan's Dad. On booking the flights and accomodation, weeks of training began for Mr Bridges and Jordan in preparation for the Tournament.

Thursday and Friday (11th and 12th of October)

We started our Journey to Gatwick International Airport at 8am to beat the traffic on the notorious M25. Luckily we made it through without too much delay and arrived at Gatwick with around 8 hours before our flight was due to leave! The time flew by as there was plenty to do (arcades, shops and our PSPs). We decided to grab a bite to eat before we boarded the plane for our 13 hour journey!!

On arrival in Hong Kong, we were met by Mr Darren Holmes IV and taken through to an indoor coach station to board our bus to the Tseun Wan district of the Kowloon Peninsula, where we would be staying! On arrival at the Hotel and after checking in, we quickly had time to dump our bags and get a change of clothes as Mr Holmes had organised a trip to see the Hong Kong light show! The light show involved the buildings on Hong Kong Island being illuminated with lasers, searchlights and coloured beams, synchronised with music! We were NOT expecting to see such a feast for the senses!


After watching the light show we had time to go for a bite to eat, before the coach picked us back up! We found an underground shopping mall (and although it was 9pm at night) the place was alive with activity! We found a small food court in the depths of this vast shopping complex. Jordan took the safe option and went for a tasty looking pizza, whilst Mr Bridges and Jordan's dad (Lee) tried a Japanese Curry with Boiled Rice (which wasn't all that bad). After we filled up, we headed back to the coach which would take us to our hotel.

Saturday

We were up bright and early on Saturday morning to get ready for the Junior Tournament. We made our way down to reception and the place was awash with kids in Doboks. We boarded our coach and we made the short journey towards the Cyberport complex, situated on the west of the island! On arrival we made our way into the building which was basically a massive shopping complex (Jordan spotted a huge toy shop). The venue was massive, with 2 rings set up right in the middle of the main area of the center. Surrounding the rings on one side was a balcony/mezzanine on 2 levels, a big screen with a live tournament feed and on the other, huge windows revealing an amazing view of the sea and surrouning islands.

The opening cermony started with introductions of the three VIPs at attendance at the Tournament, Master Oldham, Master Chew Teck Seong VII (from Malaysia) and Mr O'Keefe (Cyberport Director) breaking pieces of wood to declare the tournament open!

During the day Mr Bridges and Jordan were fortunate to meet Master Chew (and get his Autograph).

Jordan entered both Patterns and Sparring at the Tournament! His category was very large with competitors from England, Scotland, Japan, China, Malaysia and Hong Kong amongst others. In the patterns competition, Jordan performed Yul-Gok against his competitor (8th Kup) who performed Chon-Ji. We were almost certain that Jordan had won this first round but unfortunately the other competitor won with the majority of the votes! We were disapointed but it soon became apparant that Jordan wasn't the only higher grade to lose against a lower grade in the patterns! There was a lot of disappointment on the day!

Once again, Jordan's category was very large for the sparring! This time he would be up against kids that were lot older than him and most of them were senior grades. Jordan's first bout was against a red belt who had a height and weight advantage on Jordan! The bout was fast and furious, with a lot of heavy contact! Jordan fought valiantly but unfortnately did not make it past the first round! Throughout the tournament there was a lot of complaints about heavy contact, one instructor even pulled his team out due to his students getting hurt during the sparring! This trend was not popular with the tournament organisers and Master Chew, who made sure the teams in question were told to tone down the impact during sparring! However we got to see some great bouts throughout the day and started to make friends with other students and their families from the UK.

After a long day we made our way back to the hotel for a bite to eat, to watch the England Football Game and to relax in preparation for Day 2 of the Cyberport Tournament. We missed the Rugby Semi Final as it was on at 4am in the morning Hong Kong time...!

Sunday

Once again we were up bright and early to prepare ourselves for the 40 minute trip to Cyberport! On arrival at 10am, the coloured belt adult patterns began, so Mr Bridges decided to get warmed up practicing his patterns in preparation for the Blackbelt competition later on in the afternoon! Soon after Mr Bridges began warming up he began feeling ill...putting it down to nerves he continued to warm up, and socailise with friends met on the previous day!

At around 11am, Mr Bridges fell ill with severe sickness....but was determined to get better so he would be able to compete, however he got worse! Although he was extremely ill, Mr Bridges was determined to enter the patterns competition at least....but as his condition deterioated and he decided to pull out with 5 minutes to spare before the start of the blackbelt competition! Mr Bridges was suffering from severe food poisoning!

From 11am until 5.30pm, Mr Bridges was extremely ill....and missed the entire tournament! As he condition worsened many people became worried about his health, including Master Oldham who was going to call upon Medics to tend to him...! At around 6.30pm, Mr Bridges began to recover...and was able to watch the final events of the tournament...team patterns and team sparring! The Team sparring was fantastic as GTUK Scotland and GTUK England took on the Japanese and Hong Kong teams! Mr Bridges was very disappointed that he missed the tournament due to ill health...he trained very hard for many weeks and months leading up to the tournament...!!

The tournament closed at around 7.30pm and we made our way back to the hotel...exhausted! Mr Bridges was asleep by 9.30pm and followed closely by Jordan and his dad that popped out briefly for a bite to eat at McDonalds before hitting the hay! The following 3 days we were on excursions around Hong Kong, Kowloon and Lantau, all organised by Mr Holmes. We had an amazing time....!

Mr Bridges, Jordan and his dad thoroughly enjoyed their time in Hong Kong and are looking forward to perhaps visiting again (With Team Impact???)