LJay’s celebrate Warrior success

LJAY’S Martial Arts’ recently held the second iteration of “The Way of the Warrior” at the Kilnamanagh Recreation Centre last Saturday.

The event was a massive success with over 50 fights taking place involving over 100 competitors.

One aspect of the competition that allowed it to stand apart was that rather than being fought in a ring, the bouts were fought under the Tatami discipline where competitors are fighting on mats.

Jake Riddell of Ljay’s Martial Arts touched on the differences and why the club opted for a Tatami show.

“It’s not traditional what people would think of as a fightshow, I believe it’s the only one of its kind in Ireland now, a long time ago when I was younger they were around but they have kind of fallen off since.

‘I guess that’s because the likes of UFC and Boxing became more popular and more kickboxing fights in Ireland became centered in a ring.

‘There’s a huge part of kickboxing that doesn’t take place in a ring, different disciplines that people may not see on TV.

‘We train all disciplines and I’ve competed internationally in all disciplines. This show was a chance for our fighters and fighters around the country to compete in Tatami and not in the ring.”

“The ring is a full contact discipline, you need a decent amount of experience before you can attempt to fight in one of them.

‘What’s different and exciting about a show like the one we had on, was that you have people and kids training for maybe a year, it’s brilliant that they can compete as opposed to waiting for a traditional ring show where you would need three or four years training.

‘It’s really about breaking people in competition and giving them that experience.”

The club hosted their first “Way of the Warrior” and went from having over 40 fights to 50 fights between the two events.

The show was able to blend both beginners and younger fighters in with more advanced established competitors.

‘Last year there were a few elite bouts in the main and co main event but this year saw a whole main card of fighters, many of whom have competed at International level.

15 fighters from LJay’s competed which marked the most that the club has ever had at a tournament, an impressive figure for the club which operates out of Kilnamanagh and continues to be run by the Riddell family.

Jake spoke on the differences from organising last year to this year and how the reputation of the event is growing.

“Last year when we were putting the show together we put the word out and from some clubs we got great interest and in others we didn’t.

‘I understand why, they were thinking ‘what is this going to look like’ and ‘how are you going to do it’, because it isn’t something that has been done recently in Ireland.

‘By making the platform last year, this year we had a lot more advanced fighters that were looking to fight on it and get involved so we saw a big uptake on advanced fighters.”

He also touched on future plans for the show.

“We’d definitely be looking to do the show again next year. It’s a huge undertaking organisation wise.

‘I’d love to say that we are going to do more and have one even sooner than that but I’m not sure about that. It’s a massive undertaking.

‘What we want is for the fighters in our club and around the country to be given an opportunity to showcase their hard work and talent.”

It is set to be an extremely busy end of the year for the club, now with “The Way of the Warrior” wrapped up for this year the club can look ahead to the WAKO Senior European Championships.

This will be the biggest event of the year in the Kickboxing Calendar with the World and European Championships operating on a rotating annual basis.

It will be an incredibly historic tournament for LJay’s in particular as it will mark the first time that Jake, Josh and Zak Riddell will compete together as Seniors.

The trio have travelled together many times before but have not competed in the same show.

The European Championships are set to take place in Skopje North Macedonia from November 6th to the 15th.