Washington YODP
December 16, 2009
Washington State Youth Olympic Development Program kicked off their
inaugural event by bringing together (25) Athletes and (20) Referees for a
combined training on Saturday December 12th at Auburn YMCA. This was a
great first step for the new Washington YODP in providing an opportunity for
aspiring 11-17 year old athletes to train with top-notch students from other
schools who all hope to reach the highest levels of national and international
competition.
Casey Mills, Greg Burd, Jay Farrell and Chuck Sweigart provided various
training segments that included the latest speed, strength and conditioning
techniques as taught at US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Kumite
techniques and strategy, Nutritional development for the high level athlete, WKF
Shitei Kata requirements, and Referee perspective of what every competitor needs
to know.
YODP training was run in conjunction with USA-NKF Referee Course so athletes
also had the opportunity to apply their knowledge in matches refereed by certified
USA-NKF officials. The Referee Course featured some lively questions and
discussion during Chuck Sweigart’s Power Point presentation followed by the
written test. After lunch, Laura Doyle, Jay Farrell, Julius Parniczky, Jim Doyle
and Doug Exum worked together on official’s flag and hand signals in addition to
running several mock matches before joining the YODP group for some great
practical experience with the highly-competitive athletes.
There were many memorable matches that evoked applause from the crowd and
also some tremendous theatrics by competitors who tested official’s knowledge and
application of the rules. Everyone seemed to have a smile on their face as the day
ended with an agreement for our next Washington YODP event to be held in late
March as a warm-up for USA-Open and USA-NKF Junior Olympics.
Congratulations to everyone who participated in this combined training event. It
was an impressive display of the excellent Karate-ka we have in Washington
State and another fine example of how much we stand to gain by working together
in cooperation and harmony.
Douglas R. Exum, President
Washington State Karate-do Federation
Washington State Karate-do Federation
Regional Sport Organization of the USA-NKF
14150 NE 20th Street - F1 / # 376
Bellevue, WA 98007
