Kee's Taekwondo, York-ton hosted the 13th annual Prairie Wildfire Invitational Taekwondo Challenge at the Gal-lagher Centre Flexihall Saturday. Master Wayne Mitchell of Kees Yorkton says the tournament was successful. The number of participants were good and everything appears to have run smoothly.
Competitors at the event came from Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota.
Competition involved both patterns and sparring divisions. Patterns competition involves a set of prearranged basic techniques placed together in a meaningful manner. There's a technical part and also the artistry of executing it, Mitchell points out. The patterns competition format is a double elimination head-to-head format. The loser drops to the B-side and still has a chance to come back and win.
The hardest part of Mitchell's day is trying to make the divisions fair for sparring. He takes into consideration athletes' sizes, weights, heights and experience levels. "When we have fair divisions, everybody enjoys the day," he suggests.
Francis Bazin recently returned from the Pan-Am Championships in Las Vegas where he won a bronze medal as a member of the Canadian Junior team. Because there were no juniors at his level at the Prairie Wildfire Challenge, Bazin was placed into the adult division, Mitchell reports.
Mitchell, who also operates Kee's Taekwondo, Yorkton, says the school is a little bigger than last year. Part of the increase in membership is a result of the return of Matthew Bodnaryk who is a fun instructor as well as being highly technical and strict. "He keeps the kids wanting to come back and train hard," Mitchell states.
Autumn Ashcroft and Suzanne Mitchell run the Kees after school program.
The school currently boasts students in their 80s as well as four-year-old youngsters. "It's for anybody. It's a matter of coming down and trying an introductory class and seeing if it's what you really want to do. It's a year round activity so people sign up all the time," Mitchell says.
If anyone would like more information they should call the school at 783-0650.
Taekwondo offers basic fitness. "It's something that's step-by-step challenging. You can see where you're going to go," Mitchell claims.
Only about 10 per cent of the participants actually go into competition. It's more for personal benefit, he suggests.
This year Kees and Yorkton Key Chevrolet Toyota have partnered in a referral sponsorship program. If someone buys a new or used car from Key and is referred to the dealership by Kee's, the dealership donates $300 per vehicle to Kee's Athletes' Fund. "We're quite pleased with the relationship. It's really going to help our athletes to get to go to a few bigger competitions that they don't do or get some of the younger ones to travel to an event than they normally would have," Mitchell explains.
Most valuable awards were claimed by: Most Valuable Referee - Matt LeCren; MVP Black belts - Adult Female, Alisha Triff, Regina; Adult Male, Tyler Mous-seau, Thunder Bay; Junior Female, Kathryn Lohnes, Yorkton; Junior Male, Samuel Lohnes, Yorkton.
Sparring results for Kee's Yorkton athletes were: Junior Female Black Belt Heavy - 1) Kathryn Lohnes; 3) Alyssa Kunkel. Junior B Black Belt Light - 2) Devon Frounfelter; 3)Eric Fookes. Junior A Black Belt Light - 1) Shane Varjassy. Adult Male Black Belt Middle - 2) Clark Bazin. Junior Male Black Belt Heavy - 1) Samuel Lohnes. Adult Male Black Belt Welter - 2) Francis Bazin. Pee Wee Beginner Light - 1) Kallie Buenneke. Midget Girls Beginner Light - 2) Trinity Lawrence. Midget Girl Advance Light - 3) Shaylene Froese. Pee Wee Male Beginner Light - 2) Jaxon Boyda; 3) Daniel Roden. Pee Wee Male Beginner Middle - 3) Trystin Sulatyski. Junior Male Beginner Heavy - 1) Sven Crane. Mitey Mite Beginner Light - 2) Lukas Hoeber. Midget Male Interme-diate Heavy - 1) Seth Cherry. Pee Wee Inter-mediate Light - 2) Justin Fookes. Junior Male Intermediate Heavy - 1) Joseph Sliva. Pee Wee Male Advance Heavy - 1) Kyle Schmidt. Pee Wee Advance Light - 1) Zane Chopik. Midget Male Advance Heavy - 1) Liam Cherry. Junior Male Advance Light - 1) Tyler Buenneke; 3) Rylan Bahrey.
Pattern divisions results for local athletes were: Junior B Male Black Belt - 3) Eric Fookes. Pee Wee Male Basic - 2) Lukas Hoeber. Pee Wee Female Taegeuk 1 - 2) Kallie Buenneke. Midget Female Taegeuk 1 - 2) Jenna Porte. Pee Wee Male Taegeuk 1 - 3) Jaxon Boyda. Midget Male Taegeuk 1 - 3) Daniel Roden; 3) Trystin Sulatyski. Junior B Male Beginner - 3) Sven Crane. Junior A Male Beginner - 1) Eric Crane. Midget Male Taeguek 3 - 3) Joseph Sliva. Midget Male Taegeuk 4 - 3) Justin Fookes. Midget Female Intermediate - 1) Shalysa Brown. Pee Wee Male Taegeuk 6 - 1) Tyler Buenneke; 2) Zane Chopik. Midget Male Taegeuk 6 - 1) Kyle Schmidt; 3) Liam Cherry. Junior Female Taegeuk 8 - 2) Alyssa Kunkel.
