News 2007

2nd national team selection camp
News 2007 >>

To the season's second and this year's first national team selection camp gathered a great number of people. There were as many as 34 people interesting in competing participating the trainings. The participants came from southern Finland as well as from the north and there were first timers and experienced national team "veterans" taking part. Also red belts can participate these camps, which gives them a good opportunity to see how it's like to train aiming for succeeding in Championships. I find this very good and the (international) competition experience obtained so far and the quality trainings with black belts can already be seen in many red belts' performances. Coming to national team selection camps lowers the barrier to participate black belt competitions when they get to that point. Also in this camp there were many red belts who will compete of places in the national team when they reach the 1st degree. Some already this season.

In the Saturday morning's training we concentrated on basic techniques and patterns. Special attention was paid to backward motion in the beginning of each technique. This is found out to be absent especially in turnings. I had just concentrated on the same thing in my previous day's training, so I had it in fresh memory. However, I found the idea how it works in some movements that have been troubling me for a longer time and this way was able to create more power and also better timing.

The sparring training of the afternoon started with a warm-up where belts were swung and "fat turned blue" (this is a saying for getting bruises. How nice can it be to simply beat someone with a belt? Let a lone being beaten yourself... The training itself was started with an attitude training involving verbal aggression. I must admit that this really wasn't my cup of tea and many others seemed to have problems with it as well. In the actual sparring excercises we went through some old things, especially moving and faking. Mariusz had planned some good exercises, like the good old "boy and a barking dog". In the sparring-like excercises we especially concentrated on keeping the distance short in all possible situations of a fight. In the end we had a couple of rounds of attitude sparring, with a "who gets the last word" -principle. In our "big boys" group the whole thing turned into something close to a beating, but I suppose that was at least partly the idea of it. Joonas Helassalo remembered me with a back kick to my tail bone, which Juhana Toiviainen had already softened up with a front kick the previous Sunday and my training ended somewhat painful way. Luckily the training was almost over anyway, so I didn't miss anything.

On Sunday we also trained two 1,5 hour sessions. However, this time there was only a half an hour break between the sessions. The day was again given a kickstart with a proper beating, this time we were equipped with soft and light foamed plastic battons. An old saying "get sweat by raging around" pretty much suited this situation. The first training was again basic techniques and patterns. First we went through what we learned the day before with different patterns and then divided into smaller groups to train individual patterns. The women put up a team pattern session, which was video taped by head coach Steckiewicz. It was great to watch five good women do team patterns with five more good ones waiting for their turn. The task of the coaches is not an easy one when they choose the ones who'll be in the team. The core group should actually be given to public already this week. My own training went pretty fine, but theres still lots of work to be done with balance and certain kicks. Hand techniques feel quite strong, seemingly the strength training I've done ever since last Autumn has brought even more power into my hands, which have been rather sharp already before.

After a short break we had a couple of funny team competitions. Cheering and hyping your own team's superiority (usually with no basis) were important. At least for our team. After a couple of moving excercises we put on the equipment and started working. In the excercises with a partner we still concentrated on moving, keeping the distance short and blokking. With the words of coach Pekka Varis teasing the opponent. The excercises went more and more to the direction of actual sparring and in the end we fought a few rounds. The hit I got the previous day disturbed me a bit, but all together the rounds went pretty fine. I didn't feel comfortable to use the back kick, though. It was nice to get to fight with Amir Elovaara and Risto Jokelainen from Oulu. Amir is one of the fastest guys around and somehow his front hand just met my face amazingly many times. Even though I took a bit carefully my condition seemed to be well good enough for this kind of sparring, which is of course good when it comes to the competitions ahead. The long sparring rounds of the early winter and condition training seem to have done their job and now it's about the time to concentrate more and more on speed. On that area I feel there's very much work to be done. Next time the ones aiming for the national team are being tested in the Finnish championships at Tampere 17th of February. The third national team selection camp takes place a week after that.