We have had limited access to the internet, and our key photographers and video people are still travelling, but the news is that the Australian team was very successful in Rome. The highlight was the success of the Australian junior male and female teams. Both teams won silver medals in team sparring, and faced Argentina in the final. Luke Ravlic, Alec Kumar and Hashira Weerawardena fought in the junior male team, while Quniton Le and Ashley Ravlic won silver medals in individual sparring – awesome work!! Mary Pirozek did a great job in the junior female team, and our adult female, Sanja Stapar won bronze in her two individual events, sparring and patterns. The veterans also brought home some medals, and everyone, medallist or not, put in a superb effort often against far more experienced opponents. We also had a World Cup gold medallist in sparring, the one and only Cooper Ravlic! Congratulations and a huge huge thank you to Master Cariotis for his years and years of building us as martial artists, and the last 12 months of training us for Rome. Thanks also to John Ravlic and Yogi Kumar for being our coaches.We also had a wonderful team of supporters – our juniors could not have been here without the support of their families, and none of us could have been here without the support of the students of USMA who are keeping the school alive and kicking while we are all away.

International Grading, 7 June 2014

It is a very proud day for USMA. A milestone in our history of United Schools Of Martial Arts, after 20 years we have our first home-grown 4th Degree Blackbelts. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the successful students on their great achievement.

Promoted to 4th Degree Blackbelt are:

• Sabum John Ravlic
• Sabum Lisa Wise
• Sabum Vishnu Sankar

Promoted to 3rd Degree Blackbelt are:

• Mr Michael Corry
• Mr Perry Kofos

Promoted to 1st Degree Blackbelt:

• Mr Ignacio Bruhn

Coming events
14th June 2014 – Gup Grading
28th-29th,June 2014 – Master class Seminar, World Championship Training
Tournament

Master Spiridon Cariotis VII Dan

Congratulations to the following students who were promoted to their next rank at Saturday’s grading.

• Solomon George – 1st Dan
• Cooper Ravlic – 1st Gup
• Trung Anh Ngo – 1st Gup
• Meagan Vongkham – 1st Gup
• Jessie Kioussis – 2nd Gup
• Ayush Jain – 4th Gup
• Nivain Perera – 5th Gup
• Scott Zheng – 5th Gup
• Shelley Zhang – 6th Gup
• Anna Zhang – 6th Gup
• David Cheng Qiu – 7th Gup
• Emil Thomas – 7th Gup
• Meghana Abburi – 7th Gup
• Matthew Awad – 8th Gup
• Nathan Awad – 9th Gup
• Rudi Haramis – 9th Gup
• Marion Halas – 9th Gup
• Jasmine Tsiros – junior Green
• Tyler Wisdom – junior Green
• Zak Kray – junior Green
• Marlon Rosenbaum – junior Green
• Toby Schmuel – junior Green

Friends of USMA will be hosting a fund-raising dinner to help the participants representing Australia in Rome. The function will be held at the Clarinda Community Centre, 58-70 Viney Street, Clarinda from 7:00 pm until midnight on Saturday April 12th. Entertainment will include a demonstration of taekwondo, a silent auction and raffle, a three course buffet dinner and dancing. Tickets are on sale from this week and are $50. More information from Yogendra Kumar or Jenny Ravlic.

Anglesea 2014 was undoubtedly USMA Taekwondo’s best annual summer training camp yet!
Between January 9-13, Taekwondo students, and club supporters who came along, participated in a vigorous workout regime. More than 50 people took part in the event which involved four days of 6am wake-ups and intensive training sessions at Anglesea beach. The early classes may have tested characters but turned out to be an excellent way for everyone to get back into fitness mode after a festive holiday break.

To recap:

Our seminar focused on patterns, sparring (both competitive and technical) and self-defence. A grading also took place at the camp. We are very proud to announce that Lance Rubin and Brendan Lacota were promoted to the rank of 3rd-Degree Blackbelt on Saturday January 10. On behalf of USMA Taekwondo we congratulate them on this outstanding achievement. On Sunday 11th January students took part in a gruelling technical training session, but their hard work was rewarded afterwards with a visit to Luna Park and day of relaxation by the beach.

All up, the camp was a great success and, though it will be hard to top this, we look forward to seeing you all at next year’s summer training camp.

The registration forms for the Victorian Championships can be downloaded through the United ITF Facebook page. If you are planning on competing at the Championships, please note that the forms must be submitted by February 21st with payment.

• Download forms

USMA is proud to have 18 members selected for the national team to compete in Rome, Italy in 2014.