If judo is Japanese, Vovinam Viet Vo Dao is Vietnamese. “This martial art born almost a century ago brings together a multitude of disciplines” Explain Jonathan Boure is the president and coach of the Laval club “like the katas that can be found in karate, French boxing in kicking, wrestling like judo and acrobatic kicks like taekwondo.“
In Vovinam, the kimono (dress) is blue and the highest belt is not black but yellow.
Among the forty licensees at the Laval club, there are Onellia Guittois13 years old who particularly appreciates “combat, scissor kicks, all things knife“.
In competition, these are two-person fights in feet fists knees with gloves, helmet and breastplate for protection.
Kevin Legeay, 29, is a yellow belt, second dan. He has eleven years of practice under his belt. And the return to competition this weekend is good after two years very disrupted by the Covid crisis: “we tried to give our all on the few periods we had to train. We’re going into the unknown for this competition because we don’t know the level of the opponents after this long break. We’ll see how it goes. It’s a bit of a surprise. But the most important thing is to have fun and not put pressure on yourself.“
There are two Vovinam clubs in Mayenne, that of Laval and that of Saint-Berthevin. This represents about sixty practitioners, knowing that there were up to 200 licensees of Vovinam Viet Vo Dao in Mayenne during the good years of the discipline.