Good week last week with a lot of focus on training and unusually a Sunday off.

I am going to the ASDA workshop at St James Park tomorrow (Wednesday) and will give you all on an update when I get back.

This week is a busy week as we also set off for Germany on Thursday night to compete in the German Open. It should be a good competition and hopefully I will produce a couple of good performances. It will be strange as we will not have our normal coaches with us as the Chi coaches are not attending and Master Pete of Scorpions will be staying at home as Adele (his wife) is due to have a baby in the next couple of days.

When we travel on Thursday night we are picking Kaz and Stella up from Doncaster on the way to the airport. We will be meeting a couple of other teams at the airport as BTS are on the same flights as us are staying in the same hotel.

So will be a different weekend with other clubs coaching us all and it push comes to shove both Scott and Kaz will have to coach.

Also not to forget Stella will be back at International competition after recovering from her hand injury. Stella won last weekend at Doncaster and she is looking forward to producing a good performance and hopefully a podium finish.

Hi,

I cannot believe what a busy couple of weeks I have had. Everything is now going at a 100 miles an hour and I don’t have any time to blog etc.

Last Wednesday I attended the ASDA Sporting Chance workshop at St James Park, Newcastle. It was really good to meet all the other athletes in the region and the ASDA Sporting Chance Team and brilliant to hear Chris Tomlinson to speak again. The media team had some really good ideas about using digital media to promote yourself and your sport. I will be using twitter soon!

Next it was back to school on Thursday morning and then a trip to the airport (via Doncaster to pick Kaz and Stella up) for the flight to Hamburg.

We arrived in Hamburg, Friday morning and got collected by Timmo from the German federation who took us to our hotel and made sure we made the early morning weigh-in. We met up with the Great Britain team at the weigh-in and one or two other British teams. After all of us making the weight we went to the supermarket and then to bed for a couple of hours. Later we had something to eat and met up with the BTS team and their coach Gareth Brown who was coaching us this weekend.

We arrived at the venue at 7am on Saturday as BTS had a couple of players who were competing and we were going to support them. Saturday was a funny name as Scott, Stella, Kaz or I was not fighting and we were able to watch the competition. We saw some really good fights and Martin Stamper of Great Britain beat Servet Tazegul of Turkey in a brilliant -68 Kg final. So a day off from fighting and back to the hotel for an early meal and bed.

Sunday saw me have my first fight on ring 8 and I was the third fight of the day which meant and early start again. I played my first game against Belarus National Team and won 12-8.

My second fight was against a Dutch player who has just won the Dutch National Championships and I had a comfortable 6-3 victory.

The next fight was against a Russian player and I unfortunately lost 4-3 and went out of the competition in the quarter finals. Not so good but three good performances and just pipped at the post by the Russian!

Scott played well in his first fight and beat a German player 4-0. He went out the next round against a Russian player 7-2. So we both lost v Russian.

Kaz played against Thailand and I don’t want to say much, except Kaz you were robbed mate and we have the video to prove it!!!!

Stella the best punch I have seen, you made Kebab out of her! Still don’t understand why she was not counted out. Happy Birthday Stella now you are officially an old person (20 years old lol)

To Gareth Brown of BTS Southampton, thank you for the coaching and I am really looking forward to the training camp in Southampton.

We travelled back Sunday night and arrived home early Monday morning. This week I have also been filling in-forms and applying for training camps and also filling in my application to attend the selection camps for the Great Britain Academy.

I have applied to attend a training camp in Korea for three weeks this summer with the WTF at the Kyung Hee University. I hope I get selected as I really enjoyed the last visit I did to Korea and want to be able to train in Korea again.

More importantly I hope I get selected to attend the junior development camps and then get selected to join the Great Britain Academy full-time. If successful I will live and train in Manchester with the Great Britain team and this is one of the big milestones on my path to develop my career in Taekwondo. I am looking forward such much to getting this opportunity, I cannot describe how much it means to me.

And finally congratulations to Master Pete and Adele as their second daughter Elizabeth Amelia was born on Tuesday.

That’s all another busy week and I am off to play football with my mates and then to strength and conditioning training with Master Russell at Spennymoor Chi. Big Waz my Dad’s mate is training with us.

Spent the last week training and preparing for Belgium Open. I have decided to compete at senior -54 Kg in Belgium and I am looking forward to competing at seniors. As usual I have talked to my coaches and taken advice but I want to compete at senior as I have always competed at the next level as soon as I have been able to. It will be no pressure as I am not expected to win and will be looking to gain valuable ring time against senior athletes.

The competition in Belgium is looking like it is going to be a big one with over a thousand athletes competing.

Scott is competing along with a couple of other Chi taekwondo team mates Jade Slavin and Sophie Ward. As an added bonus my mum is coming with us, so it will be a full family outing as Simone is coming to watch and Dad will be there as usual.

I have also applied for my provisional licence as I am getting a scooter to transport me to and from training. A couple of my mates are getting scooters as well so we will be able to ride around Spennymoor in style lol.

It is my charity night at Bistro Fifty 3 on Sunday night and we have over forty people attending for a three course meal. I would like to say thank you to everyone who is attending and also a big thank you to Kevin Mitchell for his donation as he was unable to attend due to work but still made a donation to me.

Other good news I have just had the revised result back for my business studies module and it has been upgraded to an A, I have also got an A in my course work and one exam to go so depending on the exam mark it looks like I am on for an A at business studies. I have also passed my mathematics at a C and decided not to retake the exam to concentrate on other subjects.

Busy weekend this weekend as will be training at Doncaster tonight and then a trip to Liverpool to train with at OTC on Saturday.

I had my Charity Night at Bistro Fifty 3 on Sunday and had a brilliant night.

I would like to thank Bistro Fifty 3 for putting on the night for me.

I would like to thank everyone who attended the evening and I would also like to thank my cousin Gemma who performed live on the night.

Gemma is a talented musician who recently appeared on stage in the regional heats on live and unsigned.

Thanks everyone Jamie