Another fine showing at the weekend at the 2012 Portsmouth Open Karate Tournament from the local group of Seishinkai Shotokan Karate International in one of the most prestigious tournaments of the annual karate calendar. This was the tournament’s 42nd year and the Mountbatten Centre in Portsmouth was absolutely packed with competitors and spectators alike to witness an excellent display of top class karate, with competitors coming from all over the UK and also from Holland.
The local successes were, the under sixteen’s team kata where the local Hemel Hempstead club took the gold medal in real style in a very tough event. The three involved were: Thomas Carson, Criisty Nash and Olivia Christodoulou. This was immediately followed by the adult team winning their event as well and the local team was made up of, Adam Cockfield, Daniel White and Aaron Gould.
What a brilliant start to the day – two events and two gold medals!
Vicky Adams and Rachael Houlton won both the kata (forms) and kumite (sparring) events in their respective categories, Adams in the black-belt division and Houlton in the brown-belt division.
Leah Groom won the ladies 16/17 years category in the sparring section of the cadet category.
Silver medals were won by, Tom Colbourne, Cameron West and the ladies sparring team of, Rachael Houlton, Vicky Adams and Leah Groom, with bronze medals going to, Matt Gilling and Paul Sheehy.
Fourth place trophies were awarded to the ‘B’ kata team in the adult category which was made up of,
Sam Richards, Stacey Barton and Danny Richards and Paul Sheehy was awarded his fourth place trophy in the lower grades kata event.

Another excellent showing from the local group and the worldwide Chief Instructor, Malcolm Phipps 8th Dan, who is also the Hemel Hempstead instructor, was very impressed and extremely pleased with his young charges and stated that seven champions in this very high class tournament is indeed another huge success. He went on to state that it had been an absolutely wonderful year and indeed one of the very best in our thirty-five year history in Hemel Hempstead. Anyone interested in training with this local group please either ring HH 266048 or log on to the Association’s website: www.sski.org where you will see details of all the local clubs which are: Hemel Hempstead, Bovingdon, Berkhamsted, Kings Langley, Watford, St Albans and Slip End.
Everyone will be welcome, children and adults alike.
The local clubs are members of the Dacorum Card scheme and support the NSPCC.

Last edited by Malcolm Phipps 8th Dan on November 18, 2012