Written by: Jordyn Connell, SportWORKS Officer, Sport for Newcomers Charlottetown
Hello everyone!
We have a very busy month ahead of us filled with lots of different events covering different sports. We kicked off this month with judo sessions at the Rikidokan Judo and Mixed Martial arts studio in Charlottetown. For this event we were able to accommodate all our youth clients by holding sessions for youth ages 6-12 and another for ages 13-18. We also organized these events to be held on both Monday May 1st and Wednesday May 3rd to get a larger number of kids involved.
The building that the judo studio is located in is called the Royalty Center. The Royalty Center is home to many different sports organizations including the Island Gymnastics Academy and karate. Sport PEI is also located in the building and many others. So, just by being in the building our clients are exposed to some of the many different sports offered here in PEI.
The events on both Monday and Wednesday went great, between both sessions on both days we were able to get 40 of our newcomer clients out to try judo. The dojo had our kids join in with their regular classes that they hold on Mondays and Wednesdays, so our clients were able to meet some kids and see who they would be participating with if they decided to join the dojo. It also gave the kids who were members the opportunity to teach and guide our clients along with the coaches. We even had one of our clients come into the dojo and realize that two of his friends from school were members there and they were all very excited about it.
The coaches brought things back to the basics for our clients learning the simple skills and safety was their main focus for the sessions. Having fun was also a focus, they finished off the younger groups sessions with a game of tag and a relay race which both incorporated skills they had learned during the session. The older groups got to cover some more advanced skills and got into some sparing. We had lots of interest from our clients asking how they enroll in regular classes. We even had parents asking how to enroll in adult classes. Overall, this event was very successful and we can’t wait for the rest of our events we have planned this month!
