Seminar weekend Sanda referees and Sanda matinee.

Last weekend, Saturday January 25th and Sunday January 26th, Earl Blijd organised a seminar with the aim to provide further training for Sanda referees and introduce new referee candidates as well as coaches and fighters to the rules. Sanda (i.e. Chinese kickboxing) has been practised fanatically by several schools in the past years and this is evident through the increasing quality and quantity of fighters. A sport that is becoming increasingly professional requires sufficiently qualified referees.

Earl Blijd, who has been the national Sanda coach for several years himself, attracted none less but the Frenchman William Nouchet to Groningen for this seminar! Monsieur Nouchet is the chairman of referees of the European Association and also a member of the referee committee of the world-wide association. Hence, he is not only an authority in theory but has acquired a respectable list of achievements as well.

Luckily, most schools were present these two days resulting in a significant amount of people who obtain the same information which can only benefit the quality of Sanda. Unfortunately, not all schools took this opportunity to gain this kind of knowledge.

The first day did not only consist of theory. Under the guidance of William Nouchet we had a lot of practise in techniques which was equally interesting to the fighters that were present.

Sunday was marked by four fights for the title of the W.K.A. This was, at the same time, a suitable moment forthe referees to gain more practical experience under the close watch of William Nouchet. Furthermore, there was a demonstration by Evert Fyeet, a pupil of sifu Zhao, who recently became champion in the category free fight within the class up to 90 kilos. Some gaps were filled with demonstrations by pupils at Bao Trieu who presented some style-forms. The youth semi-contact fight was not to be missed either. After all, Earl organises a competition for youths every year and his school is very involved in semi-contact fighting.

That was not all, however! Earl Blijd succeeded to invite none less but Ernesto Hoost to Groningen in order to give an even greater appeal to the afternoon! Ernesto is, for those who don't know yet, the best active Dutch fighter at this moment who just got his fourth title at the K1 in Japan.

The programme began reasonably on time. It was opened with a Lion Dance after which the new lion was dedicated by Ernesto Hoost. Then Ernesto was given speacial appreciation by means of a nice speech and a fine gift. The speech also pointed out that free fighters are not necessarily 'animals'. Ernesto's background is as a sports instructor and he also works with children a lot. Once more, it seemed that sport has a very social function as well.

After this followed the competition for the Dutch W.K.A. titles. The first fight was within the class up to 110 kilos. Jente Schaap of Hong Ying Leiden and Eugene Hodes of the Allied Wing Chun Federation gave everything in this fight. It was a very tiring competition in which Eugene Hodes was finally given technical knock-out.
The second fight was between Aissa Allaui of Bao Trieu / Blijd and Remy de Ligny of the Allied Wing Chun Federation. Aissa demonstrated that he is a very complete fighter who can apply all facets of Sanda skilfully. He proved this trough some splendid throwing techniques which did, however, require a lot of stamina. As a result, Aissa decided to discontinue the fight after two rounds.

At the end of this day, there was a spectacular fight between Danny Hoyer of the Wushu Institute Hoyer and Tobias Eijgelshoven of Bao Trieu / Blijd. Both fighters appeared to be technically strong and daring. Tobias, who participated in the EK Sanda 2002 in Portugal, still had to pay some dues after his defeat in Oud-Gastel and was particularly alert. Danny was, unfortunately, less fit as he was still recovering from the flu. But this didn't stop him fighting. It was great!
It became a good and varied fight, in which the fighters demonstrated to the public what good Sanda entails. In the end, Tobias appeared to be the strongest. I am already looking forward to their next confrontation, probably at the NK in June.

The planned demonstration fight between Evert Fyeet and Raymon Messak was cancelled because of Raymon's injury. In order to give the public their money's worth (another fight in the W.K.A. was already cancelled through injury), Rob Gruis, Chairman of the NWF, decided to fight Evert. As it is rather difficult to judge one's own performance, I can only say that according to some, it was a good demo.

But back to what I started out with, the referee seminar. William Nouchet demonstrated that he hadn't come to Groningen from Paris just for the weather. On several occasions, he expressed his role as main referee of the competition through interruptions and at times corrections of decisions made by acting referees. He also emphasised that one thing is of key importance, namely to show respect for the opponent and the referee. Discussions and bargaining against the protocol by the fighters are therefore not allowed. It is the task of the referees and coaches in the Netherlands to inform their fighters about how the protocol works and to stick closely to its requirements, so we can look forward to enjoying good and clean competitions.
It was a shame that we didn't get to see William himself in action as acting referee. He is quite consistent in that. As a main referee, one cannot assume a second role. Who is able to correct you in case of a mistake?
All in all it was a very successful weekend with very motivated participants and a good collaboration between the different schools and associations. I think that every participant became a good deal wiser.

Translation: Bettina van Hoven