Local judoka (judoka is an individual who practices and embraces the philosophy of judo) and Rye College student Braydon Robus, 16 and his friend Izzie Everest, 17 from Hastings, who has cerebral palsy, are making waves in the judo community. They are members of Westerleigh Judokwai Club who pride themselves in being fully inclusive.
Adapted karate kata was introduced to involve people with mental and or physical disabilities enabling them to enjoy the benefits they can achieve from karate and to facilitate their participation in competitions at the highest level in both European and world tournaments.
Braydon and Izzy have been showing the Judo Association that being inclusive is important and possible. They have been working hard these last few years to prove that having a disability is not going to hold them back. Izzie is a very determined young lady and soon realised that Braydon would be a great partner and that they too could learn and compete in the kata section which up until now had not been done, by adapting how they perform this. For those who don’t know, kata is a slowed down version of the usual judo moves and involves very precise and sharp movements to show clearly how they perform the throw. Izzie performs the moves and Braydon is the lucky one who gets thrown but still has to land in a clean and precise way, so as you can imagine, this takes a lot of hours training and practising and they both take it very seriously.
They have competed at many competitions and come away with many titles to their name:
- British Judo Association National Kata Champions 2022 and still the only and current Adaptive Kata Champions.
- British Judo Council Adaptive Kata Champions 2023 (2 x gold).
- BENG World Kata Champions 2022 and 2023 and will be competing again 13 April in Holland.
- British Judo Association Southern area award 2022 for their work on promoting Adaptive Kata in the UK.
They have recently been presented with their Adaptive GB Squad badges which means they are both now able to represent Great Britain for adaptive kata. They have also both completed their level 1 coaching and are now coaching others with adaptive kata which is incredible, so as you can see they are both very dedicated and passionate about judo. This also involves a lot of travelling as most events are not local so also takes a lot of dedication from their parents.
It would be amazing to get these two further along in their journey by way of sponsorship, starting with tracksuits which will be ordered in August. They would be made up if they could get to more European competitions and also to the Croatia Training camp in June so if you would be interested in supporting and sponsoring Braydon and Izzy then do please get in touch with the club on 01424 442726.
Image Credits: Carolyn Gould .