The CYC judo team brought home two gold and two silver medals from the San Jose Buddhist Judo Sensei Memorial tournament held on February 14 at San Jose State University. Gold medal winners: Westley Hart (5-0) and Anastasia Lobsinger (3-0); Silver medal winners: Adrian Gomez (3-1) and Jesse Hart (3-1). Athletes who demonstrated good effort were Katerina Obsinger, Wyatt Ochoa and Holden Ganch. This was one of the largest USA judo senior E-level point tournaments in the nation. There were 714 athletes, 591 competing in junior divisions. I wish to recognize both the pre-judo and regular recreational competitors for all their hard work at practice.
The judo team was also proud to participate in this year’s “Take Judo to Heart” tournament on Valentine’s Day, part of the proceeds being donated to the American Heart Association.
Judo Student of the Month is Katerina Lobsinger. Katerina, as well as her older sister, Anastasia, are new additions to the team. They are the darling daughters of a CYC alumnus. Once in a while, a young athlete walks into the dojo and shows tremendous energy and good work ethic and all the core values of CYC. It is a joy to watch Katerina learn quickly and throw her partners around with confidence in free-sparring. Katerina showed excellent courage and fighting spirit against more experienced and advanced opponents at her first tournament. Thank you for setting a good example for other students. Keep up the good work and keep smiling!