River of Knowledge - International Chito-Ryu Karate-do Federation ...

2009 Sunshine Coast KarateChampionshipsBy Matthew StevensonSunshine Coast Tournament, 21June 2009, Kawana Waters StateCollege, Queensland.At this tournament, new experimentalrules with kata and kumite weretrialled, notably, with refinements tothe way kata and kumite werejudged.There were also modifications to thestandard size of the fighting area sothat it was reduced in size by 13‘jigsaw’ mats, ie 6m x 6m rather thanthe conventional 7m x 7m fightingarea.With these changes I initially thoughtthere would be more jogai (penaltiesfor exiting the fighting area), but onthe day I don’t think there were anymore jogai than usual.What I like the most about the newrules is that it seems like a lot ofthought has gone into how the theycan be changed to maketournaments more closely aligned tothe learning’s of karate-do, which is agood thing. Very recently I’ve heardthere might be bunkai events attournaments, which would seem tosupport this observation.It only seems like yesterday that thefirst Sunshine Coast tournament washeld, well, actually this was the 6 thtournament! It was also great to seea lot of the family names in karatecontinuing over the years, theWoodhouse’s, O’Grady’s as well asnewer families and siblings comingthrough.While we had fewer competitors thanin years gone past, this didn’t deter afantastic tournament from occurring,and Sensei’s, competitors andspectators alike remarked on thehigh quality of performances. Isuspect the reason the numberswere down slightly was becausethere are far more tournaments onthese days and so you don’t getinterstate competitors coming up asregularly as you used to.I look forward to next year, and urgesoutherners to consider making thetrip next year to have a short warmbreak with some karate and goodtimes thrown in. The global financialcrisis will be over by then too, Ipromise!Competitors also commenced theirbouts facing each other from thecorners of the square rather than themiddle, which made for moreinteresting viewing angles forspectators, and I think combined withthe smaller square, a differenttreatment and awareness of spaceby competitors. From personalexperience it is also the ‘corner’fighting where the excitementhappens and forces attacks, and wecertainly weren’t disappointed on thatfront.The changes to the kumite rules alsoresult in an arbitrator who is a seniorranked karateka who also recordsthe score and penalties. This takespressure of the judges and theofficials.Kata was interesting too becauserather than having 4 judges all judgethe same thing, there are now threejudges scoring different aspects ofkarate. Sometimes this resulted invastly different scores being given byeach judge. These variations inscores don’t mean there has been a‘mistake’ by the judges, or by thecompetitor for that matter, just thatdifferent things are being assessedby each judge.131. Team Kata - Tia Guy, Claudia Kaston,Patrick Kitcheni (Sunshine Coast)2. David Strazzari (Sunshine Coast) vs LukeMoulden (Sunshine Coast).3. Keanu Caston (Sunshine Coast) vs RyanWilcox (Gold Coast)4. David Strazzari (Sunshine Coast)24River of Knowledge – Spring 2009 8