County Squad Session
The first county squad session for 2005 will be at Samurai Judo Club on TUESDAY MARCH 8th.
Juniors start at 6.30 (finish 8.00). Minimum grade 6th mon. (Older blue/brown belts may prefer senior mat.)
Seniors start at 8.00 (finish 9.30). Minimum grade 8th kyu (or 12th mon for juniors aged 14+).
Club coaches are welcome to come on. Please bring a soft drink. Mat fee £2, proceeds to county funds.
This session will be used to help select teams for the County Invitation Teams in April – see below.

Kids Help Kids Session
MONDAY FEB 28th at Samurai Judo Club starting at 7.00 prompt (finish 9.00). Mat fee £1, proceeds to county funds. Please bring a soft drink. This is generally aimed at players under 16 years, 1st mon to 6th mon.
This is a new idea to improve judo at grass roots in the County. It is aimed at junior red and yellow belts and will be run by very experienced junior players (under adult supervision). The session will mostly focus on basic techniques (e.g. ippon seoinage, taiotoshi, drop seoi, o uchi gari, ko uchi gake, turnovers and transition into groundwork). The idea is that they will be demonstrated by young, top class players who can do the techniques better than us arthritic old coaches, and perhaps also relate better to other youngsters. There will be quite a few junior coaches on the mat so each player will get some attention. The junior coaches will also explain some of the contest rules and show some training techniques.
There will be an opportunity for some very light randori as a training method, but this is NOT a contest session and is being targeted at club level players. Lead coaches will be Kate Walker (British Youth Squad, British Cadet Squad, British Cadet Champion, Grade 3 Junior Referee and Gold Star Award holder) and Ben Newbury (British Kata Champion, Senior Recorder, Grade 3 Junior Referee and Gold Star Award holder). We are looking for other junior coaches, either brown belts or national squad members – please contact me.

County Trials
We can confirm that there will be a County Team Challenge on April 2nd at Walsall, organized by Samurai JC. Teams from most counties in the Midlands are expected and possibly a few from counties bordering the Midlands such as Gloucestershire may also be invited. A lot of counties have already expressed interest.
Finding a date for a County Trials is near to impossible, there are events literally every weekend between now and April. We will weigh everybody at the county squad session on March 1st and where we need play-offs for places we will arrange a date to suit everybody on that night. If there are only a small number of play-offs needed, we will do them on that night. I would rather have a formal trials as usual, but this is just not possible.
We can enter several teams in the event, so the more the merrier!
Players who either live in the county or are registered (on their licence) to a county club are eligible, except national level players (with OVER 300 points last year) who must live in the county.

WE NEED some help on April 2nd, with first aid, timekeeping, selling raffle tickets, stewarding, managing the door & taking spectators entry fees. We are looking for each club in the county to supply two volunteers. Please contact Sarah Newbury on 01386 421088.

Andrew Haffner, Worcs County Coach. Tel 01886 821087 Email Andrew@haffner.org.uk