The Moose Jaw Koseikan Judo Club has a large group of young competitors and this past weekend they got a chance to show what they could do at the Pense beginners tournament.

The competition was only open to white, yellow and orange belts and the competitors were grouped by age, not weight. Moose Jaw sent 18 competitors and all of them finished in the top four in their class.

"They did really well," said Koseikan coach Kailey Large. "We were very happy with how everyone fought.

"We have a lot of kids in our club this year and they're doing very well. It's good to see."

While many had already competed in the Koseikan's beginner's tournament earlier in the season, they were still relatively inexperienced.

While it's great for the young competitors to take home medals, there are other ways of evaluating their progress.

"We mostly look for them using the techniques that we've taught them in practice," said Large. "We look for them to try different things. When they're beginners they tend to have one throw that they always want to use. So we encourage them to try more than one and get them used to using a couple of different throws rather than using the same one all of the time.

"I always think they're kind of successful if they at least try more than one throw - whether it works for them or not."

All totalled the Koseikan Club won 16 medals.

Sara Wiens, Kohl Henrikson, Chance Legare-Thorn, Justin Wiens and Dez Henrikson each brought home gold medals.

Damien Wiens, Kayden Anderson, Jaden Large, Stephen Edwards, Brolyn Kemp, Justin Filteau each won silver and Madelaine Stich and Brooke German finished tied for second in their group.

Ashley German, Zachary German and Bailey Hodgson each won bronze medals in their groups. Brett Stich and Dylan Anderson were each fourth in their groups.

Appeared in the Moose Jaw Times-Herald February 9, 2010