What a weekend…!

It’s 7am and I’m sat in the breakfast bar at the Ravens Cliff Marston Inn in Motherwell processing the events of yesterday, and I’m on my third cup of coffee already. I’m a great believer in visualisation but I’m not sure even I would have imagined our weekend being such a blinding success. 

But let us start at the beginning. A 4am wake up call on Friday morning and a dash to the taxi made me grateful for my obsessive need to write lists and pack early.

Once we were all at the airport we made our first new friend of the weekend. Meet ‘pops’ the lovely assistance driver who took us from the terminal to the plane so we didn’t have to walk. There was only a little bit of waiting around and the boys couldn’t resist doing a quick TKD class in the corridor!

I have GOT to do a massive shout out to the Bristol OCS Passenger ASSIST crew who were all amazing and could not do enough to help!

The flight was fantastic fun, especially for H and L who were both flying for the first time, and easyJet made it a breeze.

We were equally lucky with our accommodation. We chose the nearest place to the sports arena for ease of travel but we didn’t imagine for a minute we would be greeted by the friendliest team. - I should say the first thing that I found impressive was the call I received from the manager when we were still in the taxi from the airport asking if we would prefer twin or double room set ups. - Maybe I’ve just booked the wrong hotels in the past but I have NEVER had a call from a reasonably priced hotel asking me what would work best for us before we even arrive!

These guys absolutely could not do enough for us. They were full but managed to turn our booked rooms around in 30 minutes so the boys could go and rest as soon as we arrived at 11:30 rather than the 2pm schedule.

Food was great, rooms were perfect for our needs, but the staff and their attentiveness were AMAZING!

Everything going ticketyboo so far, but like every major event in life, it never goes exactly to plan. The flight carrying our Swain clan was repeatedly delayed and then cancelled on the Friday night and knowing them both I can only imagine how stressful that was.

They let me know on Friday evening and we mutually decided not to tell anyone that night to ensure they all had a good nights sleep before the tournament.

At breakfast we were able to break the news and remind everyone that it good to be ‘pre-disastered’ as it means the bad is out the way, and we were lucky enough to also have with us a Pseudo Swain in the form of Mr Mark Payne - I’m sure you will agree the resemblance to Jenny is UNCANNY.

So, I left early to get to the Tournament and sort out some logistics leaving the amazing Kat Newman in charge of wrangling and getting all the competitors to the venue.

Once they arrived we found ring one and settled in for the duration, all good so far! Then ‘SHOCK, HORROR’ the request to line up was made over the tannoy.

Now, this is no big deal to anyone who does a lot of big tournaments but to most who are only familiar with our P.U.M.A. domestic championships, this was brand new.

We all managed though and it was an amazing site to see all the hundreds of competitors standing in neat lines with their schools/organisations. I chose to stand next to the line and let Pseudo Swain be at the top (he did a great job).

Then it was all hands on deck for the first division.

Lucas C from Wales was up first and won. I wish I had filmed the look of concentration which slowly morphed into relief, then surprise and then abject joy at the realisation he had gone through to the next round.

This one was a bye, meaning the scheduled opponent had not shown up, so he had to go on the mat again, bow and then officially be awarded the round. Straight to the final and it was close, but by a 3/2 majority Lucas C took the GOLD, and by doing so he created the template for the rest of the day.

He was quickly followed by GOLD for both Dominic R and Harry R, and A SILVER for Lucy E, and then BRONZE for Jordan G, Alison H and Theresa B. An amazing haul of medals for the first ever ALL STARS INTERNATIONAL keeping in mind there were competitors from 4 countries present. We then watched the assisted division sparring and special technique which gave us lots of great ideas to implement in out IS division when we get home.

Before and after!

Not to be outdone the P.U.M.A. squad members who came with us outdid themselves with Katie B being awarded a SILVER in Patterns and a GOLD (by golden point) in Sparring.

Oliver H brought home a BRONZE in Patterns and a BRONZE in Sparring.

Olly P (Pseudo Swain in waiting) was awarded a BRONZE in patterns and a BRONZE in Sparring and also a SILVER in special technique.

Sienna T was awarded a BRONZE in patterns, a GOLD in Sparring and a BRONZE in Special Technique.

At the Ravens Cliff Marston Inn celebrating

The whole P.U.M.A. coaching team could not be more proud of the amazing athletes who travelled all the way to Scotland to compete and we are already making plans to do it again next year! In the meantime Master McILvaney has promised to head down to a P.U.M.A. event soon so we will all meet up again :)