A trio of Yukon judokas is gaining experience out east.

Cassi Jensen, Shayne Melanson and Daniel Tonner are about midway through a trip to Quebec and Ontario with Yukon Judo high performance coach Bianca Ockedahl, where they are fighting new opponents.

Melanson, who hasn’t had a competitive judo match in some time, said he was feeling the butterflies before he stepped onto the mat for his first fight at the Quebec Open in Montreal last weekend. But he let experience and some positive self-talk help him along.

“I looked at the guy, and I thought, yeah, I can take this guy,” he said from Montreal this morning.

Fighting in the U18 -90 Kg category, Melanson’s first opponent, Nicolas Levesque, was from Quebec.

They grappled on the ground.

“(He) tried to put a choke on me and I said, yeah that’s not going to happen,” said Melanson.

Instead he got on top and held down Levesque for his first win of the tournament.

“It felt pretty awesome,” he said. “It was the first fight in awhile.”

He would win his next fight against Alex Hennebury of Nova Scotia, before losing in a semifinal against Ontario’s Rayleigh Becker.

During that semifinal, Melanson sustained a concussion, so he is sitting out a training camp this week and will not be competing in the Ontario Open this coming weekend.

It’s his first time getting a concussion.

“Little dizzy, but I’ll pull through,” he said.

Teammate Tonner, who competed in the U14 -42 Kg category had a 1-2 record for the weekend, good enough for ninth.

“It was pretty good,” said Tonner of the experience. “I won my first fight by a hold down.”

The Quebec Open is the biggest arena that Tonner has fought in to date, the next biggest was in Edmonton earlier this year.

Tonner is taking in lots of information during the training camp this week.

“We’re training really hard and it’s fun,” he said.

This weekend he’ll get to have a rematch with some of his opponents at the Ontario Open.

“I’m looking forward to fighting the same people again because I know I can beat some of them,” he said. “I want to fight some of them again.”

Jensen meanwhile had three new opponents to take on in the U14 -48Kg category.

The lone female blue belt in her weight category in the Yukon, she often fights the boys.

In Quebec, she lost her first match against Leonarda Horak of Quebec, before winning her second against Marie-Eve Leblanc of New Brunswick and losing her final match against Skyler Hattendorf of the U.S.

“I should’ve done a lot better,” said Jensen. “I didn’t place.”

But she gained some more experience fighting new opponents. This week during the training camp she continues to hone her skills before the Ontario Open.

“I’m excited,” she said of the upcoming competition in Toronto. “I’m tired from the camp, but I’m excited.”

Coach Ockedahl said that for the level of her Yukon athletes compared to the level of the tournament, they did relatively well.

“Now they know what it will take to perhaps medal there next year,” she said. “It just gives them an eye-opener of what to expect in the next couple years.”