Saturday December 13th was the Colorado Springs Invitational Karate Tournament, held at the Crown Plaza Hotel. This was an absolutely great tournament put on by The Jay Haynes' Family Karate Center. Everything ran on time! Officials had an excellent sit down lunch at the hotel restaurant. There was plenty of time to change, and plenty of room to warm up and practice before your event. This was indeed the best run tournament that I have ever attended, competed in, and officiated, since I did all three for this event.
We had three members of Ward's Family Karate representing us for the tournament.
Keri Myers,
Joshua Ward, and
Sensei Scott Ward.
Here are the results and comments that I have:
We took two gold medals, two silver medals and 2 bronze medals.
Keri,
Unfortunately Keri was truly in a class by herself. She was the only competitor in her division. (I hate it when that happens). So we allowed here to compete solo in kata, and then set up an exhibition match for kumite.
Gold - Kata - performing Heian Yodan. nice job.
Gold - Kumite - We selected a black belt (13 yrs. old) for Keri to compete against. This was one tough black belt. She went on to fight an exhibition match against the adult black belt division and won that decisively against a very tough competitor. Usually the idea of exhibition match is to fight a good fight but to leave some openings and let the person from the division win. Well that did not happen in this case. The black belt fight took this as just another chance to practice. I was certainly a one side match. Keri did not have opportunity to score. However she did a excellent job of defense for what she was up against and show some great form. I believe she even got a contact warn for putting on in they to strong. (I told her she would have to do that!) Unfortunately I did not see the match first hand and I have to report from a video I watched later.
You can watch this video here.
Joshua,
Silver - Kata - Joshua competed in the black belt division and performed Wonsu. Pretty good for someone who does not like to do kata. his stances are a bit to low for this kata.
Bonze - Kumite - This was a forth place bronze. Joshua had a really rock em suck em fight. Yes it was more of fight than a sparring match. He was competing in the 14-17 year old advanced (black belt) division. Joshua is 14 and about 105 lb. his opponent was 17 and probably tipped 150 lb. The penalties were flying. Once again I did not see this match but have to work from the videos. I believe that his opponent was using to much force and not controlling his kicks and punches. Joshua returned in kind once he got his game on. We were concerned that his ribs were broken, but he was OK by the end of the day.
You can his match here
Wonsu Kata
Kumite again
Sensei Ward Kobudo - No medal – I did the best Chuan No Kun kata I have ever done, but it helps if you don’t loose your bo. I lost my grip during a disarm and had to snag the bo out of air before it got away too far.
Bronze – Kata – What can I say. It was the best Paisai I have ever done. The others were just better.
Silver – Kumite – I lost the match by one point as the time ran out. I had been leading the match after a beautiful check kick to the head. My opponent was a full head taller than me. I faced him in a right lead and went for a sweep with my left foot. As I hit him in the ankle I bounced the kick all that way up to the side of his head.
My opponent was big and lack control with his head punches. He opened the bout with a punch right in my face. Before the ref could call yame I returned the favor and drove a right reverse punch hard into his face. We both took warnings, and the tone of the match was set.
I know that my sound pretty bad exchanging blows like that, but a sparring match is as much psychological as it is physical. I could not let him gain that psychological advantage over me. So I have to show him what ever he gave I was going to return. He hit me at least one more time like that and this time he lost a point.
The match and the gold would have been might but a I through a kick that was not working one to many times ( a skipping round kick). He caught the kick as he had twice before, but this time he managed a sweep. On the way down I decided to plan a axe kick in his chest, but I missed as he shifted around the side to score his punch. That pushed him one up on me and the time ran out after that.
Watch the video: Kata Paisai, kobudo Chun no kun, Kumite
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