Eclipse aces set to take on the world
A Black Country kickboxing club have cleaned up in the national championships and now have their sights firmly focused on the rest of the world.
Eclipse Martial Arts club in Kidderminster are coming off one of their most successful meetings in the club’s 35-year history, writes Ben Husband.
The club, based at Wolverley Memorial Hall, entered the KWON Grand Slam 3, Grand Championships in Solihull and came back with a host of champions.
Club president Will Jennings was delighted with their performance.
“It was fantastic, they were all absolutely brilliant. We’ve come back with six champions and eight belts,” he said.
Daniel Hawkins, aged 21, was crowned grand champion, while 13-year-old Cieran Carroll added to his world title with a double success seeing land the grand champion and weapons Kata champion belts.
Shane Nunn, aged seven, took the points fighting and light contact honours, while Emily Pitt, 17, brought home two belts, as points and weapons champion.
Dawn Wood also added to her collection of six titles with the points belt.
And Jennings was delighted to see the 42-year-old claim more success.
“She’s been brilliant, it’s amazing how much she has improved,” he said.
“She started by just coming to a keep fit class for beginners and now she’s won multiple titles.”
The tournament is the highlight of the Grand Slam year in kickboxing and the results were borne out of hard work.
“We’ve trained for this for the whole year, we have the Grand Slam 1 and 2, but this is always the biggest weekend, we’ve worked so hard for it and to be honest I’m quite overwhelmed with how well we’ve done,” added Jennings.
Eclipse currently has 60 members and Jennings is confident that will only increase.
“It’s booming at the moment, we have a large age range, with people as young as four joining,” he said.
“The club also has members through a wide spread of abilities, from beginners looking to stay healthy to world champions. We are also seeing an increase in female members, which can only be good for the club.”
Despite the fantastic success, Jennings is already planning the club’s next title haul.
“We have the World United Kickboxing Championships in October and we are taking a team and are very confident,” he added.
“We already have three world titles from last year and we think we can add even more.”
Looking to add to Eclipse’s multiple world champions is 10-year-old Callum Hawkins.
Jennings said “He’s already got 20 titles which is amazing and we have very high hopes that he’ll be able to add even more in the future.”
