Montreal to Quebec City

Just arrived at Montreal. It is 5.30pm here (9.30am back home). Only a
2.5 hour bus trip to go. Half the team are on this bus and we're
underway. Fair to say we are all pretty sick of travelling. Got told
off again by border control on the way in when I tried to photograph a
welcome to Canada sign. Sigh.
Finally we have found some clear skys. It seems quite warm.

3am start, LA to Toronoto...

Our wake up call was at 3am this morning (yawn). Up, showered and downstairs to wait for the buses to turn up at 4am. We had breakfast packs compliments of Air NZ catering organised by Afi which were great.

When we got to LA airport at 4.30am (for our 7.00am flight, the Air Canada counters hadn't opened. They open at 5am. We had a TKD queue of 80 going all the way out onto the street (see photo above).

Then homeland security decided that we looked a bit dodgy and gave the 80 of us the full security treatment, ie wiping down our bags and handles looking for traces of bomb stuff and a full body frisk. Luckily I came through near the front of the queue then made my way up to the Air Canada lounge where I was able to get onto the net to get this report posted for you. I'm guessing many of the others are still coming through the process.

We're all looking forward to getting to Quebec City. Most are going to Toronto, then Montreal then 1/2 fly and 1/2 bus to Quebec City. Meanwhile one group of 15 are flying to Calgary then Montreal.

It's going to be a long day. Gotta go now... 10 minutes until our boarding call so I'd better go find the departure lounge.

More pictures...

We are in the US of A...

Pretty good flight that left Auckland late and arrived to high overcast, smoggy Los Angeles. I got my head bitten off by the immigration officer for reaching over to pick up our passports when he
had finished with them. Maybe he was having a bad day. We coached to our hotel, very basic (cheap). There is no internet in our rooms so I am typing this into my phone while hanging out at Starbucks across the road. We changed into shorts and singlet tops but there is now a cold
wind blowing.

Just found out there is free wireless internet in the Starbucks café (ah, good old America) so I will try to come back. Not looking forward to the 3.30am wake up call in the morning. Didn't sleep at all on the flight so it will be interesting.

Travelling to Canada - Saturday

The team will have arrived in Los Angeles at about 8 this morning NZ time.
They will be off again at about 11pm NZ tonight (4 AM in LA).This flight will take them from LA in the State of California to their first stop in Canada - Toronto, in the Province of Ontario.

(being a commonwealth country, Canada shares many similarities with NZ, with a strong British heritage.
Of course, there is also a major French heritage, and the quaint Canadian accent, which to my ear mixes American and Scottish :o) (there's a mosse in the hosse - rhyme with "host"))

Finally, the team should all be in Quebec, Quebec around NZ breakfast-time Sunday morning (late Saturday afternoon for them).

We're off - good bye New Zealand!

The time has come and at last we are on our way. Lots of friends and family turned up to wish the team well and say good bye. Thank you for your support!

More photos...

Team check-in for departure, Friday 25th May, 4.45pm

The New Zealand team and most supporters have a reporting time of 4.45pm at Auckland International Airport. If you'd like to see them off, this would be a good time to be there.

We're flying out on Air New Zealand NZ006 to Los Angeles, sheduled to depart at 7.45pm

Here's our itinerary:

Day 01: Friday 25 May (NZ) 7.45pm depart Auckland for 12 hour flight to Los Angeles.

Day 02: Friday 25 May (US) Arrive Los Angeles 12.40pm on Friday (we gain a day). Stay at the Hacienda Hotel.

Day 03: Saturday 26 May (US) 4.00am!! Transferred from Hotel to Los Angeles airport for onward flight to Tononto (4 hours 40). Then we fly from Toronto to Montreal (1 hour 15). Then half the team fly to Quebec City while the other half take a coach (2 hours 30). Phew - will be good to get there!

Day 04-07 Sunday 27 May to Wednesday 30 May - time to settle into the new time zone, sus out the university where the tournament is being held and where we are staying, explore Quebec and undoubtably, do some training.

Day 08 Thursday 31st May - Four days of the tournament begins today
(In New Zealand you will be a day ahead, Friday 1st June when the tournament begins. You should get the first updates coming through in the mid-late afternoon.)

Day 09 Friday 1st June - Tournament day 2

Day 10 Saturday 2nd June - Tournament day 3

Day 11 Sunday 3rd June - Tournament day 4 and closing ceremony

Day 12 Monday 4th June - Rest day. Some of the team head back home, others head off on further travels and some stay on another night before departing on Tuesday.

Finishing touches...

Doboks ironed and folded, boots and gloves named, passport re-checked (again), is the bag big enough? Lots to check. What about my hair?


DJ models the senior mens team hair style


Mark Hanna, no longer blond!

Courtney Meleisea - 84th training session; 0 missed

Tonight is Mr Pellow's 84th junior squad training session and Courtney hasn't missed a single workout. I'm also reminded that her Mum has been to every one also.

Good luck Courtney!

Send her and others in the team a message of support here...

Dragon's Spirit wish the team well

Monday night was the last pre-tournament training held at the Dragon's Spirit club. At the end of the session the team were lined up and the whole club shaked each team member's hand to wish them well.

Leave your personal message to the team here...

Tu Te Puehu TV Programme

DJ and Luke put on a demonstration tonight which was filmed for the Tu Te Puehu TV programme which will show in about a month's time.

Last Saturday we took some video of the Juniors training which is hopefully going ot be shown on What Now.

It's only 4 degrees C in Quebec City tonight

Just when we thought we were set for fair weather in sunny Quebec City at this time of the year they're having an overnight low of 4 degrees. Brrr.

Current weather...

14 Day Entended forecast (looking better: 20-25 degrees during the tournament)...

Less than a week to departure and last Saturday training...

Today Mr Pellow's class had their last Saturday training from 9am-12pm. The Kerikeri team members had a really early start - about 5am - to get to the training.

It wasn't full-on, as Mr Pellow is working hard to ensure no one sustains an injury this close to the world champs.

See the photos...

Last Taupo camp before takeoff...

The NZ squad has assembled in Taupo for the last camp before they fly out to Canada in just under two weeks time.

It's been a relatively relaxed day's training compared with previous camps... intentionally so that team members can focus on tweaking their techniques and to avoid injuries.

Mr Banicevich came down and assisted with this morning's training giving a valuable lesson on sparring point scoring and the techniques that are most likely to be scored by judges.

Saturday morning pictures...

Master Davidson came this morning to watch the training and after lunch he formally handed each team member their New Zealand Team Doboks. After that we took the official team photos with Master Davidson, team coaches and management.

Official team photos...

Saturday afternoon photos...

The weekend so far has been relatively relaxed and up-beat.

As I write this update the team is practicing the Haka. Parents and supporters have been barred from watching it at this stage.

Tea time soon ;-)

Be careful out there

Mr Pellow's key message tonight was "train hard but be careful". He repeats it every training session. "There's no time left to get a new injury and recover from it so be careful."

Juniors training tonight consisted of a good half an hour of patterns which, at then end, had everyone very warm followed by sparring drills then team patterns.



I hate using a flash gun because images with flash can be so flat and harsh but thought I'd better get some practice in just in case the internal lighting at the world champs proves challenging. So many of tonights training photos were taking with flash (cranked down three stops to minimise it).

Continuous fine tuning...

Sunday afternoon at Impact and a few members of the senior team assemble for more extreme sparring fitness work under Mr Banicevich's "command". Tons of energy is being exerted with timed intense sparring and short one minute breaks.




A Little later Luke and Mark demonstrate their prowess with their pre-arranged sparring sequence. To avoid giving away any secrets to the offshore competition I'm refraining from showing much here... It's impressive to watch! I got my shot of the day with this...



Luke puts in a few sidekicks and this time we capture a 24 frame sequence. That's one frame every 1/5th of a second. If you have broadband, click the link and select slideshow then select 1 second intervals. It kinda works ;-)

Luke has joined them together into an animated gif.



Carolina does some more work on her patterns with both Mr Breen and Mr Banecivich critiquing. I managed to capture a great shot of her reflected in the huge mirrors...



The light conditions are superb in this room on a sunny afternoon with the sunlight streaming through the high windows offering lots of contrast and photographic challenge. Today I borrowed a second Digital SLR camera from work to try using two cameras so that I don't have to keep changing between my two favourite lenses all the time. I wanted to experiement having two cameras around my neck to see whether it worked and it was great. One for close ups (18-55mm zoom) and one for distant shots (70-300 zoom). Worked well for about 15 minutes until the battery in the borrowed camera died after about 30 shots. Ah well, another lesson learned!!

More photos of the training today...

Seniors training

I came along to the senior's training again today to watch and photograph them in action. Mr Banicevich was leading the training again and put the team through a long and intensive sparring program.

Meanwhile Luke worked on power which was simply awesome to watch.

Towards the end of the session focus changed to womans team patterns, Luke and Mark practiced male team patterns while Mr Banicevich coached Jeremy on his pattern technique details with assistance from Mr Breen. Once finished with Jeremy they moved on to working with Carolina on her patterns.

More photos...

Lets do 48 patterns as a warm up!

Mr Pellow's Junior Team training today was well attended with all the Aucklanders; Cullum, Johs and Sam from Kerikeri; Michael from Gisborne; Shane & Ross from Tauranga and Matt from Rotorua all making the treck to training. DJ and Estee joined in from the seniors team and Chris Broughton came along again also.

"Let's start with some patterns for a warm up" was the call from Mr Pellow. There were one or two drink breaks but they didn't stop until they'd completed 4 sets totalling 48 patterns!

There was a lot of sweating and energy consumed then they went on to sparring for the rest of the afternoon.

I took a few photos of the patterns work.

Photoshop 101

Had some time to spare today so I spent it working on this now heavily "photoshopped" image of Mark and Luke facing off in the final for individual patterns at the mini-tournament during the last Taupo camp. They ended up in the finals against each other twice! Knocking the background back to black and white makes quite a difference from the original image. There won't be time for this sort of "playing" with images at the world champs.

View Mark and Luke competing in the finals...

Senior's training at Impact

After berating myself for the lack of coverage and images of the senior team in training I went along to Impact this afternoon with Jeremy. There weren't a lot of team members there but I had a lot of fun trying to capture some useful images in the harsh low autumn light that was streaming in the windows.

Mr Banicevich was taking the training and we watched him warming them up, running through some patterns then working with Luke and Mark on their pre-arranged sparring routine.

Meanwhile Lizzie worked on patterns and Carl focused on special technique.

There were a few other Impact club members working on their own and more were flowing in the door when we left at about 5.

More photos...

End of an intensive week for the northern juniors

On Friay night Mr Trotter's Impact club put on a combined northern seniors and juniors training session with guest instructor Mr Mark Banicevich.

Mr Banicevich put them through an intensive fitness workout. When I turned up towards the end they were talking and demonstrating kicks and punches that were sure to win points versus technique which was hard to score or unlikely to be scored. Mr Trotter and Mr van Roon asked many questions and everyone present learned something. Mr Trotter wasn't impressed with some of his "cheeky" moves being picked apart from an "is that legal" point of view. He'd rather no one knew about them - too late now!

Unfortunately I didn't take my camera along but I took a handful of photos of the boys and girls team pattern demonstrations on Thursday and Saturday.

On Saturday morning the northern juniors met at McDonalds Papakura at 8am (yawn) for breakfast then headed down to PaulM for the final group training session of the week. The team were fairly worn out after Friday night's workout with Mr Banicevich - if he didn't already he now has a reputation for a mean fitness workout.

Training included group patterns, team patterns, some power, and individual sparring.

At 12pm it was time for everyone from out-of-town to go home... Michael to Gisborne; Shane, Ross, Matt and Jason back to Tauranga and Rotorua plus Johs, Callum and Sam back to Kerikeri.

Next week it's back to school :-( and regular training :-)

Big training week for northern juniors

After the Taupo camp the northern juniors (from Rotorua to Kaio) are staying in Auckland and training together each day under Mr Steve Pellow. It's been quite impressive seeing so many training together and we've even had a few joining in from the senior team.

The Auckland juniors normal training week consists of:

Monday night 6.30-8.30pm - training at Dragon's Spirit, Papatoetoe

Tuesday night 6.30-8.30pm - training at Paul M, Papakura

Wednesday night - normal club training for those that have it

Thursday night 6.30-8.30pm - training at Dragon's Spirit, Papatoetoe

Friday night - off

Saturday afternoon 1.00-4.00pm - training at Paul M, Papakura

Sunday afternoon - off

Mr Pellow is always happy for other black belts to join the squad for their training sessions. It adds variety, feedback for the team and we enjoy having visitors so please come along if you can.

Tonight the team went through most of their patterns together before breaking up to work on male team patterns, female team patterns, individual sparring and individual power.

Photos of tonight's training

Introduction to the Senior Team

This Taupo camp was a chance for the juniors and hanger's on like me to get to know the senior team members a lot more.

Meet the seniors...

Taupo Camp - Sunday 15 April

Today was a bit more of a relaxed start with the team heading to the gym after cleaning up the camp at about 9am. On the agenda is training on specialty, power and team patterns with those not involved in these events doing sparring exercises.

Mark Trotter took the warm up... he's a slave driver with some of the techniques challenging the team.

Today saw juniors and seniors joining together in training exercises with 4 coaches on hand to help both juniors and seniors combined.

The mood was pretty up-beat and it was a good feeling with the whole team being together for the first time since prior to trials.

It was also a good chance to swap advice with different people to take advantage of the experience of other members.

By 12pm it was time to pack up and head home. We reconvene for the last camp prior to the worlds in a month's time.

Taupo Combined Camp - Saturday 14 April

This is the first camp for juniors and seniors combined since prior to the junior trials last year. Everyone arrived on Friday night with the Kerikeri lot arriving at about midnight after their 7 hour drive. They were pretty quiet arriving because I didn't even wake or hear them and they were sleeping around my spot in the morning.

The camp was pretty packed with I guess 40 competitors, 7 coaches and management plus parents and supporters. It had a good feel about it and everyone got on really well. It really feels like a New Zealand team now.

When we arrived on Friday night it was only 8 degrees and had been raining on the way to Taupo but it's not so cold on Saturday morning.

It was an early start for the seniors with a compulsory run at 6.30am. Juniors were invited to come along if they wished to but I didn't see any leap out of bed to join in the run. A few thought about it but hadn't brought running gear (yeah... whatever)! I must admit I didn't consider joining in for more than 5 seconds either.

Today has been a mini-tournament of individual patterns, team patterns then individual sparring, specialty, team specialty with power and team power later in the day.

Mr Pellow was keen to see his juniors take it to the seniors in the sparring. Good results went both ways with everyone getting something out of the competition. It was a good measuring point which revealed previously unknown weaknesses.

We're being pretty careful what images and comments we put up on the web... we know other competing countries are watching and we don't want to give anything away. So only limited photos of such things as team patterns and pre-arranged sparring so that we don't give any of our secrets away :-)

The morning's photos

The afternoon's photos

The last activity in the gym was the first Haka practice led by Mark Trotter and Luke Thompson. It was pretty impressive by the end of the session even though some had never done it before. Sorry - no photos of this until we do the real thing in Quebec!

Tonight we stole a TV from the girls room and everyone huddled together and watched Borat and Benchwarmers DVDs. Benchwarmers hadn't been returned from the previous camp to the video shop so was about a month overdue! Oops.

I snuck off to a motel as Jan and Patrick (my wife and 3rd son) and cousin Jimmy came down to check out what all the fuss of the Taupo camps were about. It was luxury compared with sleeping on the camp floor. However, I slept like a log at camp on Friday night and had a useless night's sleep in a flash bed in a new motel tonight. Sheesh!

More build-up coverage...

Doug Hanna's build up coverage...