2006 Kyokushin World Cup, Sydney Australia

Results

OSU

November 4th, 5th the Kyokushin World cup was held in Sydney, Australia. There was over 200 entrants (due to visa difficulties only 140 participated). The world cup is a weight caragory tournament for both the men and women. Light, Middle and Heavy. This year from the USA we had 3 competitors. Ryan Higdon, Rokukyu - Ellensburg, Sensei Jim Kelly, Sandan -Moscow ID, and Kristen O'Connor, Nikyu from Maine Kyokushin. The competition was strong. The first day proved to be very exciting. Many closely fought battles. Tough decisions for the judges. Unfortunatly, the US competitors exited on the first day.

Sunday, finals day, was set to be a very good day of fighting. Once again many matches went to the end of the fight, for tough decisions. All competitors fought very well, showing great Kyokushin spirit. As one would anticipate, the finals proved to be very exciting. Each fight was very close, tetering back and forth between the fighters. Congratulations to all the competitors.

The international commite awarded Kancho Matsushima his Kudan (9th Dan) before the finals, this may have been one of the most memorable moments of the tournament.

2006 International Camp, Sydney Australia

OSU

Monday, camp participants made their way to Sydney Academy of Sports. Upon arrival we were assigned rooms, I was fortunate enough to share a room with Shihan Gary Viccars and Shihan Tony Bowden, both from Australia. Sensei Adams must have to Shihan Taylor I needed to be tormented, as they have a well know reputation as being the loudest snorers in Australia. What does not kill you makes you stronger. There were to be 5 workouts during camp, led by various Shihans from around the world. Seminars were led by Shihan Roman - Canada, Shihan Borza - Hungary, Shihan Marc - Belgium, and 2 from Kancho Matsushima. Each workout was full of fun and new exciting drills, exercises and knowledge. It was a great experience to meet karate-ka from around the world and share in the training experience. I met some great people that I look forward to training with again in the future.

Sensei Keith visiting Senpai Sky in Colorado Sept 9-11th

Greeley Kyokushin

OSU

Beginning of September I went to visit Senpai Sky at his dojo in Greeley Colorado. It was a great weekend. Saturday we traveled to Denver to train with Senpai Steve Fogarasi. Also great thanks to Sensei Mike, RMCS. During this kumite training we conducted several body conditioning and fighting drills, ending with kumite and conditioning (endurance). After training we headed out to a local watering hole for dinner and drinks, preparing to watch the “Ring of Fire” fights. The fights, while entertaining for UFC style fighting, we were disappointed to find only one K-1 style kickboxing match. This was defiantly the highlight of the event. 3 rounds of full contact K-1 fighting! Sunday Senpai Sky and I spent some time watching Kyokushin tournament videos. I lead Senpai Sky’s class through a fun workout. It was a full class of eager karate-ka! It is a great space and the beginnings of a fantastic dojo. Monday we spent more time watching Kyokushin kumite videos and practicing our kumite. It was a great time. I look forward to visiting in the winter so we can spend some time on the ski slopes!

Sensei Keith on our trip to the Hung Gar Tournament July 29th

OSU

I would like to briefly let everyone know what happened over the weekend of July 29th at the Hung Gar tournament.

We had a great showing of support of fighters. 11 people traveled to Bellingham. It was an early trip but fun, well except for the endless kung fu forms, which to me and others seemed to be all the same.

All fighters, win or lose, were winners in my book. They had the courage to march into an unfamiliar Battle arena. Not knowing what to expect, we had to keep our minds open to adjustments of strategy. What was described by the tournament promoter, on their website, and even the person who was "in charge" of the fighting portion of the event, was not what was about be bestowed upon the fighters.

We were informed before the fighting, that knees and elbows would not be allowed, "nobody is getting paid here, so we want a friendly competition, we are looking for technique not power". Apparently contact to the head with significant power, is friendly, and technical.?! Everybody who competed made the necessary adjustments to there fighting to defend and attack according to the rules and attacks put upon them.

There were only a few women competing. This was not a normal occurrence for kung fu. D was first put up against a 16yo girl, who I must say, put up an admirable fight. D is just to overpowering for most women. They then paired Sempai Sasha with a Kung fu fighter, larger body mass to challenge or Sempai. Sempai Sasha fought well, great technical skills and showed how she is a technical fighter. At times the sheer size difference was a lot for her to handle and the out of control Kung fu fighter landed a few good blows to Sempai, while not landing anything significant she was able to move sempai around the ring. Upon a conference of the judges, the declared the Kung fu fighter to be the winner?

But, what about D? Well they seemed to think a fight against a 16 yo was enough. Alas, Sensei came to the assistance and informed the "powers" that D was able and ready to fight more, she came prepared to fight - men if she had to. They were not to sure, but after asking D and getting a solid YES. They allowed her to fight with the men. D fought a great fight, in our opinion and many other spectators she clearly won the fight, but for some reason they saw the fight as pretty even an did not award her the win. She did knock the heck out of that guy and I bet he does not want to fight her again.

Andre fought admirably, unfortunately it was against a friend of his, Kurt, who trains kung fu. This is one of the toughest fights to enter and really give it your all. He battled through and fought hard. Did not find the opportunity to land the "cannon ball" but did throw a tobi geri! In the end they awarded the fight to Kurt (he rode with Andre- what a long ride home).

Andrew also fight a great battle. He was faced with a competitor who had a few more training day than he did. His opponent was not wearing headgear (he donned it later in the day), which Andrew took as an invitation to land a kakato geri. Andrew fought hard.

Tomohiro entered into the competition, standing tall. His first opponent was a solid kung fu fighter. Tomo landed mutiple mawashi geri's to his opponents legs and many tsuki's to the head. He was able maintain his distance and keep from being slowed down by his opponent. During both rounds Tomo was able to keep his opponent off guard by mixing his mae geri's with his mawashi geri's. His quick hands allowed him to land quality head shots. The judges, were reluctant to give the win to a karate person, therefore they decided to have a overtime. Tomo pulled through for the victory. For his second fight, Tomo faced a fresh fighter. Slightly shorter, but stocky. This was the battle for first. Once again Tomo used his effective reach of his legs and kept this fighter from being ablet to move in and damage him. During the second round Tomo was able to do enough damage to his opponent that he had to stop the fight. Tomo took first place. Excellent job!

Lastly, the advanced fighters. 6 competitors- one winner. Sensei Keith, entered the ring with an unknown competitor. Slightly smaller than Sensei, but well built. The match started off with some testing of the waters. Sensei quickly realized that there was no holding back on the contact to the head and had to adjust his fighting approach for the full contact to the head. The first round saw some good exchanges of blows to the head and body. Sensei was able to land some good mawashi geri's to the ribs, while his opponent landed a few good ushiro mawashi geri to Sensei abs. Sensei showed no pain, unfazed? , and blocked some of them. Round two was much like round one, the punches to the head escalated, they were working to ring each others bells. The kicks were used to set up punches. Each landing there fair share of solid contact. Many times Sensei had to refrain from using hiza geri, against the rules, a solid kyokushin technique when fighting very close range. He did slip a few. Round three saw two tired and determined fighters. Both fighters paced the round, taking their time to attack quick and hard, conserving energy as needed. Once again there were many solid exchanges between the two battling. In the end, after a judges conference- the way the decide, by committee, they declared the opponent the winner. His opponent, Jeremy also know as sliver, defeated all his opponents and took first place.

After the grueling day for both fighters and supports, we went out for the good old standard, pizza and beer. Jeff, who competed in the Kyokushin challenge, and also Saturday, joined our fun loving group for some beer. Everyone of course had fun eating and drinking, making the trip a great time for all.

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Senpai Sky on training in Colorado. Posted Apr. 2nd 2006

Senpai Sky on the Vanouver Cup. Posted Dec. 19th 2005

Yesterday Sensei Keith, myself and Papken traveled to Vancouver, BC to watch an IKO1 tournament. The Vancouver Cup 2005 took place at the Killanery Center east of downtown. We arrived about an hour early so we drove around a little while until we found a cozy little pub to have a couple of beers and watch the Seahawks defeat the Titans. The tournament opened to the public at 1 PM so in the interest of being fashionably late we showed up at 1:15. To our shock and amazement the tournament kicked off exactly at the posted start time of 1:30. When we entered the gym we were handed very well designed programs which not only were full of interesting information but also had an insert that listed, with a photo, ever fighter competing and complete brackets for all divisions. Fighting commenced with the finals of the junior division (prelims were held earlier that morning) at 1:45 following a rousing drum session by a Japanese group (sorry I forget the traditional name). The juniors fought by the same rules minus any contact to the head and they wore head gear. We immediately noticed the intensity both fighters put into every technique. These were some serious 15 - 18 year olds! The rest of the day was a blur of amazing fights, edge of your seat calls by the officials and, some rather pretty French-Canadian females! We had fun cheering for the small group of fighters from Los Angeles, who all did rather well despite being the only ‘foreigners’ competing that day. All in all it was a great event that was so well organized that the tournament director was able to sit and watch the entire show! What I brought back from this tournament was the fact that every fighter was well conditioned, tough, and had amazing skill and technique. They fought three minute rounds which is incredibly hard in itself, and most went on to fight one or two additional two minute extensions. The highlight of the day was the finals in the women's division which pitted a lightweight against a heavyweight. The lightweight was outweighed by at least 40 pounds and the heavyweight had about three to four inches on her. The lightweight fighter took the fight into both extensions and finally lost to a decision by the center judge. We were sorry to see her lose after putting up such a good fight against a bigger opponent. It goes to show that even the smallest of us can best a bigger fighter being fighting smart, quick and hard. Kudos to Sensei Nakamura (the tournament director) for putting tickets on hold for us as when we arrived the tournament was sold out. Check out the website http://www.fightingarts.ca/ for results, pictures and fighter bios. We will be purchasing the tournament video and getting together as a club to watch it sometime in January. Stay tuned for more info. Osu! Sky

Senpai Aki on dan testing. Posted Dec. 16th 2005

I started Kyokushin because it is the strongest Karate as well as most practical Karate you can train in. My purpose of training in Kyokushin is not to get the belts. Tests would come and go, I'd do my best, get my next belt and continue training simply because this is what I liked to do. I just wanted to get my skills up and become physically and mentally strong. However, after I got my brown belt, I had to become conscious of the black belt. . Although belts are not my priority, I can't deny that getting a black belt is one of the greatest achievements that one can accomplish in his or her life, especially in Kyokushin Karate, one of the toughest styles in the world. Therefore, I had to make myself ready for the black belt testing physically as well as most of all mentally. Especially last few months, I've prepared myself by participating 10-men fights after every class 3 times a week and doing at least 150 push-up and 150 leg-lifts every day. Although I've trained so hard in past few months, but it did not make myself feel I am ready for the black belt testing. Actual testing took 5 hours which includes conditioning, basics, katas, and 12-men fights. 5 hours went so fast that I can't really remember how well I did it. Only thing I clearly remember was getting pretty hard punches and low kicks from Sensei Smith during the 12-men fights. Even though the belt testing is testing your individual skills and toughness, but I believe unity, teamwork, also plays a big role. I was encouraged by everyone who tested together and cheering for each other. Without my class mates, I think I would not completed the testing successfully. I would like to thank Sensei Adams and Sensei Smith for coming here to test us. Also my biggest appreciation goes to Sensei Hill for giving me this opportunity to test for black belt and all hard trainings. I would like to thank Senpai Wessels, Senpai Warness, Senpai Machleid, Senpai Anderson,Senpai Hawely, and Senpai Berninger for helping me to achieve this level.
Sosai Oyama once said "one thousand days of training, a beginner; ten thousand days of training a master." So this is my true starting day of Kyokushin training.

Akihito Tanaka

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