Archives December 2017

On behalf of all the GMAC Instructors and Assistants, we’d like to take the opportunity to thank you all for another great year.  It has been another extremely busy year, filled with various events, competitions, as well as lots of courses and seminars.  

Personally we’d like to thank all the instructors who’ve put so much in to the classes this year, continually working hard, pushing the students to get the best from them.  We’ve seen every single student achieve something this year, and we look forward to working hard together to achieve even more in 2018.

We as always thank you for your continued support, and wish you all a very happy and safe holiday with family and friends.

Merry Christmas & A Very Prosperous New Year when it comes!!  We’ll see you all refreshed and raring to go in January!  

Our last class before Christmas in Wishaw will now be Monday 18th December, due to the VANL building closing early for the holidays, we apologise for any inconvenience this causes.

Students are of course welcome to train in our other venues should they wish to continue training this week.

Our gym will close for the Christmas & New Year Holidays according to the following schedules:

LIVINGSTON

Closes Friday 22nd December @ 8pm.

Re-opens for classes from Saturday 6th January 2018.

UDDINGSTON

Closes Friday 22nd December @ 10pm.

Re-opens for classes from Thursday 4th January 2018.

WISHAW

Closes Thursday 21st December @ 9.30pm

Re-opens for classes from Monday 8th January 2018.

We hope you all have a lovely winter break with friends and family. 

Keep an eye on our website / facebook page throughout the holidays for any updates.

The annual TAE Championships were held at the Walker Activity Dome, on Saturday 18th November.  This year a small team of 5 competitors from GMAC travelled to take part.

Results

Gold 

James Watson (Special Technique) & Kyle Lynch (Sparring)

Silver

Mhairi Crookston (Pattern), James Watson (Pattern), Despina Athanasiadou (Pattern & Sparring), Kyle Lynch (Special Technique)

Bronze

James Watson (Sparring)

Total

2 Gold,  5 Silver and 1 Bronze

Well done to everyone who travelled down, and took part.

We have been running a bi-weekly Competition training recently, as requested by a number of students in the run up to various competitions.  This will continue as a main feature of our training sessions, being held every two weeks where possible.  Full dates will be posted on the Facebook page in advance, please check regularly for details.

The last planned session prior to Christmas is this Friday 8th December (7pm – 8.30pm).  The cost per session is £5.

We have also decided to open a competitors fund, which we will use to assist with travel costs or entry fees to both national and international competitions in 2018.  We hope that members use the development training sessions which are geared to the competitive side of the martial art, to increase their knowledge and ability.  And support each other in attending more events in 2018.

16 competitors from GMAC travelled to the Open British Championships being held in Crawley, just outside London last weekend (25th November).  The competition was hosted by representatives from Scotland, England and Wales who came together to bring this awesome event to fruition.   The competition attracted 472 competitors, not only from the UK, but Ireland, Norway and Portugal as well.

Most of the team, and their supporters travelled to Crawley the day before, giving some time to explore the local area, as well as complete the registration & height/weight check in plenty of time.

Our competitors had been working hard over the last few months to prepare for the championships, putting in hours of extra practice on top of their weekly classes, and it certainly paid off with no less than 19 medals heading home with the team!

Results 

Gold:

Kaity Weir (Sparring), Madison Brown (Special Technique), Iain O’Hare (Pattern & Sparring), Megan Brown (Pattern) and Hayden McAvoy (Sparring).

Silver:

Mhairi Crookston (Sparring), Jaimie Singleton (Sparring), Lewis McIlvaney (Sparring), Madison Brown (Sparring), Jay Jervis (Sparring & Power), Megan Brown (Sparring), Jason Munro (Pattern) & Despina Athanasiadou (Power).

Bronze:

Despina Athanasiadou (Pattern), Kaity Weir (Pattern), Jacolin Brown (Pattern) & Tina Crookston (Pattern).

Total:

6 Gold, 9 Silver and 4 Bronze.

And 8th in the medal standings from 45 clubs!!

A special mention also to Mr. Iain O’Hare, who won Overall Senior Male with 2 Gold medals.

Great effort everyone!  The next competition is the Scottish Championships on 17th & 18th February, in Motherwell.  Lets keep training hard, and see as many members as possible taking part in the championships.

Photos from the event can be found on our facebook page here.

Full GMAC results here.

Our Kids Christmas Party will be on Friday 22nd December 6pm – 8pm.  Cost £3.

Food and refreshments will be provided.  See your instructor for tickets at your next class.

We are pleased to announce our 2017 awards night will be held on Saturday 24th February 2018.

This year we made the decision to move the awards night from November to February, as the end of the year was already busy with events.  We hope the change gives more opportunity to organise your attendance.

The awards also come to Livingston for the first time, with the event being held at the Livingston Football Stadium’s, New Almondvale Suite, on Saturday 24th February.

The evening will include, a 3 course. meal, awards for the past year, entertainment, disco and Photo Booth, and more.

Tickets are priced at £35 for adults, and £18 for children, under 2’s go free (although do require to book a ticket).

You can reserve your ticket now with a non-refundable £10 deposit.  Please note there are only 200 tickets available across the 4 schools, and allocated on a first come first served basis.  Don’t miss out on the best night of the year.

Voting for awards winners will commence prior to the Christmas break.