The students of prolific Port Stephens martial arts exponent and 8th Dan grand master Robert Frost continue to enjoy success at representative levels.
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Frost, who runs a number of Toogee martial arts centres across the Port and is based in Raymond Terrace, has been training both boys and girls of all ages and all standards for more than 40 years.
Two of his most recent success stories are Port Stephens teenagers Zarleigh Went and Jayme Zikman at the Australian Mixed Martial Arts Titles held in Sydney earlier this month.
Jayme, from Lemon Tree Passage, is a 15-year-old student at Hunter River High and team captain. She returned home with her third national championship medal - this time in the extreme demonstration category.
Jayme is trained by her father Tim Zikman at the Mallabula club. "Jayme has been training since the age of nine and has her eyes set on entering more competitions in 2022," he said.
Zarleigh, 15, trained by Steve Wheatland and a Year 9 student at Irrawang High School, won two titles: the Australian champion continuous sparring and Australian champion points sparring titles in the 13-15 years age category .
Zarleigh, who trains out of the Raymond Terrace club, was also placed third in the full contact sparring event, which was open all grades, including black belts.
She is a latecomer to the sport, having only started her kickboxing training around 18 months ago and taekwondo since the beginning of this year.
"Only two weeks ago she competed in the state titles and achieved the title of state champion in full contact sparring, where she competed in four levels - full contact, points contact, points sparring and free sparring. This is an incredible feat as this time last year she hadn't even thought about competing," said Lue Fagan, community liaison officer at Irrawang High.
"What else can we say except a huge congratulations from the whole Irrawang High School community."
Zarleigh is now eligible to compete with the Australian squad, with a number of overseas competitions on the horizon.
Toogee had another four entrants - Fred (who finished runner-up), Naiya, Zanda and Bella - who all performed outstandingly in their events. "The sportsmanship shown by all was amazing and they did the club proud," said Robert.
Frost established the Toogee taekwondo club in the 1990s and has opened up centres across the region. During its peak the club ran classes for up to 500 students. Today Toogee runs about 25 classes with hundreds of students aged from three to 83.
In addition to taekwondo, many of his centres offer classes in other styles of gymnastics, cardio and strength exercises with certified instructors.