Hey everyone,

With summer weather approaching, you are no longer required to wear Dobuk (uniform) for regular classes, you can wear a T-Shirt along with your belts.

One of our students, Dino Furlan, has designed some new club shirts that are going to look great, in a Dri-Fit type material with a modern look/design to them. He will have some samples in this week for sizing, and we will have price information within the next few days.

We are going to keep the shirts’ cost as low as possible, shouldn’t be too much but a bit more than a normal cotton shirt, as they are not a regular T-Shirt but a Dri-Fit material to stay cool in the approaching warm weather.

Photos will be posted ASAP!

MW

Hey everyone,

The next belt testing is scheduled to be held on Saturday, July 7.

A listing will be posted about a week and a half beforehand of who is eligible to participate in their belt testing.

Keep working hard everybody!

MW

Our team has just returned from the 2012 Canada Open in Toronto.

Unfortunately we did not get the wins we wanted, and got some very poor calls from the officials (no video review for juniors, only seniors – nothing could be done about it) but all of our athletes fought exceptionally well all weekend.

Amena Alabbas lands a head kick in her second match at the Canada Open 2012

Despite losses, there was a lot of positive things and progress that was evident at this competition – all of our competitors have nothing to be ashamed of.

In her first major event in Seniors, Kaitlin Berdan drew the Puerto Rico national team member in her first match and lost 8-3, but a spinning hook kick that just barely missed could have brought it to 8-7, and the girl ended up winning gold in the division. In her second match (the tournament was Double Elimination), Kaitlin lost a 1-0 contest to a 2x Olympian (2008,2012) from New Zealand, and landed several back kicks that were almost registered as points on the system. An amazing performance for her first outing in Seniors.

Amena Alabbas fought amazing all day, bringing an older and more experienced American opponent to a close match in her first encounter, with the opponent pulling ahead by a few points just in the dying seconds of the bout. In her second match, she showed a vast improvement since joining the team. Facing a girl she had previously lost to by 10 points in November, Amena dropped what was an 8-6 contest, but landed one head kick that wasn’t scored by the judges – and the opponent got 3 points for a missed one. So overall, came up a bit short on the scoreboard but from a physical standpoint – a very dominant match and keeps closing the gap with this girl each time.

Emilee Berdan lands a kick to the head of her first opponent

Emilee Berdan was a victim of two completely ridiculous displays of officiating, but it is what it is, she fought well and it was out of our control. Lauren Anderson had a great showing also, just barely losing two hard-fought matches by one point.

All in all, while we didn’t get the wins, I feel our team accomplished a LOT this weekend from a physical standpoint and I am extremely proud of each of them for the progress they have made.

Great job everybody. Keep your head up and let’s move on to the next one. Nobody has anything to be ashamed of. A big thanks to our friend Master George Koh of Sport TKD for helping coach Amena while I had to wait in staging with Emilee.

- Master Mark Warburton

The brackets have been posted for the Canada Open this weekend. Two of our athletes will be competing on Friday, and three on Saturday in the Junior and Senior divisions.

Here is the schedule for our athletes’ first few matches:

Friday, May 11

Lauren Anderson (Junior Female Bantam 44-46 kg / 6 athletes)
* First match vs. Katherine Yee (Ontario, Canada)
* Second match vs Linda Kulumbia Bundia (Congo National Team) – who drew a ‘bye’

Mark Warburton (Senior Male Welter 74-80 kg / 15 athletes)
* First match vs Rajiv Kumar (India National Team)
* Second match vs winner of Anthony Scalia (Quebec, Canada) and Olivier April-Lalonde (Quebec, Canada) (2012 Olympic Team Trial silver medallist)

Saturday, May 12

Amena Alabbas (Junior Female Fin -42 kg / 7 athletes)
* First match vs Kasey Zao (Ontario, Canada)
* Second match vs Tiffany Connolly (Texas, USA) – who drew a ‘bye’

Emilee Berdan (Junior Female Light Middle 55-59 kg / 5 athletes)
* First match vs Gina Woods (B.C., Canada)
* Second match vs Cara Manning (Alberta, Canada) – who drew a ‘bye’

Kaitlin Berdan (Senior Female Feather 53-57 kg / 13 athletes)
* First match vs. Emely Cartagena (Puerto Rico National Team)
* Second match vs. Evelyn Gonda (B.C., Canada) – who drew a ‘bye’)

Both Master Warburton and Kaitlin’s divisions include athletes qualified to attend the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London! This should be a very exciting event!

Check the Petrolia TKD Facebook page for updates and photos throughout the next few days of competition!
Visit us at
https://www.facebook.com/petroliatkd
and make sure to click “Like”!

Our team is set to compete at the upcoming 2012 Canada Open in Toronto this week. This international event will host over 500 athletes from countries such as Canada, USA, Puerto Rico, Mexico, New Zealand, Korea, Jordan, Congo, and others, and will feature several athletes who have competed in past Olympic games as well as some qualified for the upcoming 2012 games in London.

There will be no Competition Team Practice on Thursday/May 10, Saturday/May 12 and Monday/May 14. Regular classes will still go on as scheduled

Athletes
Amena Alabbas – Junior Female -42kg (Finweight)
Lauren Anderson – Junior Female 44-46kg (Bantamweight)
Emilee Berdan – Junior Female 55-59kg (Light Middleweight)
Kaitlin Berdan – Senior Female 53-57kg (Featherweight)
Mark Warburton – Senior Male 74-80kg (Welterweight)

The event will be held May 10-12 at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto.

-MW

A small group from our competition team attended the “Sport TKD Open” local tournament at the University of Toronto this weekend. For the seven athletes attending, we brought back four gold, five silver and one bronze.

Black Belt Team:

Kaitlin Berdan in her first tournament in the adult division finished 1st place with a exciting 4-3 victory in the finals to earn the gold.

Emilee Berdan took gold in her weight category in the 14-17 division, with a extremely dominant performance in the finals including several huge 3-point head kicks. Emilee finished the match with an axe kick to her opponent’s face resulting in a standing 8-count and the referee to stop the contest before the end of the bout’s duration.

Amena Alabbas won her first match clearly by a score of 8-3, and was winning with a 6-1 lead in the gold medal match, but we fell victim to some unfortunate refereeing calls and Amena accumulated 8 kyong-go (deductions) resulting in her opponent being declared the victor, with Amena bringing home the silver.

Lauren Anderson fought a girl much heavier than her and was the superior competitor, but again some very unlucky/unusual scoring situations resulted in a close loss. Lauren brings home a bronze.

Colour Belt Team:

Riley Skordilis in the 9-10 year old white/yellow belt division, brings home a 1st place finish after two great matches. This was Riley’s first competition and he also obtained a 2nd-place finish in poomsae (patterns) competition.

Joel Stover also in the 9-10 year old white/yellow division (in the heavier weight category) earns a 1st place finish with three solid victories in the ring. Joel also earned a silver in poomsae.

Grace Stover had a close 3-2 victory in her first match but dropped a sudden-death overtime round in the final match to result in a silver medal. Grace also brings home silver in poomsae.

Great work to everyone! These local tournaments are good practice games and the most important thing is that everyone improved, had fun and now we can see what we need to work on and build from it.

I am proud of all of you, congratulations!

-MW

Nicholas displaying 100% improvement in his back stance after a period of hard work (and about 30 minutes straight, spent in back stance). Like I always say in class – I can only provide the blueprint – you get to decide how good you want to become through your heart and work ethic   –   see the quote below the photograph!

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Edison

Keep working hard everyone. A black belt is a white belt who never quits.

MW

Hey everyone!

If you have an account on Facebook, make sure to “like” our club’s new page and invite all your friends to do the same!

https://www.facebook.com/petroliatkd

-MW

Had a fun day of sparring with the Junior Competition Team class this Easter weekend. Winning team each received a Chocolate Easter Bunny.

Team Emilee (Red) def. Team Kaitlin (Blue) after a close competition  After both teams were tied with 3 matches won each, Riley & Nicholas fought a tiebreaker round also ending in a 7-7 score. Joel and Alex then fought a Final Tiebreaker round which Joel won 11-10 giving the win to the red team.

Don’t worry, now you guys get to work off all those extra calories!

-MW

Seven of our athletes will be competing at the upcoming “Sport TKD Open” colour belt/black belt local tournament in Toronto on April 21.

Riley Skordilis (R) and Grace Stover are 2 of the 7 athletes representing Petrolia TKD on April 21 at the 'Sport TKD Open' tournament in Toronto

Representing our school will be:
Riley Skordilis
Grace Stover
Joel Stover
Amena Alabbas
Lauren Anderson
Emilee Berdan
Kaitlin Berdan

Good luck everyone!