The International Karate Championships has come and went gone once again, but the days have been long and tiresome in a good way. My dad was part of the organization who made it possible for this large event to happen in Utrecht, Holland. As for me, I was more involved than ever before.
Since it was happening in The Netherlands, it would be more conventional for us in several ways. As has been the case in these 4 years, the event was only very busy during the tournament itself, and not during the seminars.
On thursday morning, I attended all 9 available seminars. First up was Bob Liles, a veteran legend(well, pretty much every teacher is eminent in their own way) who showed us surprise and powerful attacks using pads and techniques while making funny movie references.
Next was Rainer Schulte, a German teacher who gave us extensions and variations on techniques, and later on talked about mind games being important during fights, and the philosophy surrounding the American system and the styles that are distinguished from each other.
After that, John Sepulveda combined three specific techniques, but this theme was added to his talks in overall. Scott Higgins then let us train on continious attacks and adaptations towards situations. It got more complex the longer it went despite starting out simple.
One of my favorite teachers was then Bob White, who is a great motivator in my opinion and once again gave us freestyle trainings and tactics to try out. In addition to that, he showed some advantages one could have during sparring sessions, with the intent to overcome opponents.
José María Gutiérrez was back, the funny Spanish teacher from last year. This time he showed us knife techniques that had quite many moves during each of them. Although the content was nice and new for me, his explanations were sometimes difficult to follow because of his lack of English.
After a break of an hour, Mohamad Tabatabai was up next who showed us ground and wrestling techniques for this year. I have always disliked this fighting style a little bit because it's hard, but I really enjoyed a seminar like this once again. I learned a lot from working towards or on the ground.
Another new teacher for me up next was Angelo Collado, a very friendly man who had one of the best seminars for me personally. He gave great advice on becoming better when talking about forms, and he thoroughly looked at our Short Form 3, quickening it up, slowing it down, walking it backwards and constantly with focus and precision. He also offered answers towards the psychological nature surrounding forms during competition.
Finally for today was the incredible Ed Parker Jr., I actually saw him myself for the first time. As the son of the Senior Grandmaster, instead of showing us martial arts, he teached us Kinetica, or as it's future title will soon be, paxtial arts. It was really interesting to observe his way of teaching and during examples, watching his behaviour and reaction towards attacks.
His formula of 3 different kind of curves of the human body including twisted and compressed ones has me convinced to know more about it. This was definitely a unique branch found on Kenpo, encouraging future generations to look at the martial arts and the system in different ways.
But there is more talking to be done. On friday morning, after waking up with very stiff muscles, 6 more seminars were scheduled. First up was Allan Corrigan, an Irish black belt that gave us a seminar that woke up pretty much everyone. He let us train on the relativity the sword techniques have in common, while showing us impressive execution and speed during explanations.
Next up was Kevin Mills, a favorite for many of my fellow Dutch men. I have heard about his Sublevel 4 teachings for several years, but this was the first time I experienced it for myself. Basically, it's about recoiling impact curves, making attacks stronger. He also talked about how the body reacts naturally as well as mentally. There is most likely more to be found about Sublevel 4 though, as I remember a different approach.
John Ward came then, who talked about category compleation, which was about 4 similar techniques and the relation they have, such as grip or kick techniques. Unfortunately, this seminar wasn't that interesting, aside from some grip tricks the teacher showed us.
Scott Higgins surprisingly was up once again, because apparently he had to fill in the first time for someone else. His hour was exactly the same, but he extended upon it. I cannot say much else other than I found it too bad not to be able to meet the Chilean black belt who dropped out.
Jimmy Poland was another Irish teacher today and I remember his amazing leghold while falling down the ground the most. We were allowed to try it out and it was great to do so. Next to this, he showed examples stopping incoming attacks by using swift counters towards weak targets, such as punching towards the shoulder before the fist could reach you. He called it himself 3D attacks, and I personally think that he was talking about depth then. Some of his examples also showed similarities towards Kevin Mills's, which prompted me right away to combine the teachings of the two seminars.
Norman Sandler was the final teacher, much like last year. He showed extensions towards Short Form 3, that while the moves were recognizable most of the time, they were pretty long and difficult to learn in such a short time. By the time this was over, I was happy to go home, because I was completely exhausted from today and the day before.
The next morning was the beginning of the tournament! Many countries were represented, including Spain, Ireland, Germany, U.S.A., Russia, Belgium and even unlikely ones such as Iran, Pakistan and Venezuela. This time, I showed 6 self defense techniques, 3 green techniques, 2 blue and 1 brown. I could not hear the scores I got from the judges(I placed 11th place though), but I do remember the applause and the compliments I got from others, so that went well.
Some hours later, I performed Short Form 3 once again, since I am still a blue belt. That felt pretty good while I was performing it, delivering convincing KIYA's and movement. The only thing that went wrong was the little jump where you must spin around in order to continue, but once again I was content.
What was unexpected though is that on each large division I just described, I had to go FIRST out of the 25-30 people! The suspension was greatly lowered for me, but the bad news was that judges were likely to forget the first performance unless I did exceptionally. The rest of the day, I was either watching, waiting, taking pictures/films or talking with familiar faces from before.
On sunday morning, the adult freestyle sparring sessions were scheduled, a thrilling part of Kenpo Karate. While I was up first yesterday, today, it was all about stressful waiting for me. My division was ridiculously large, and I had to wait for 2,5 hours around my area before I was up. It's kind of funny because I was given a bye at first, then when I was called up, my opponent did not show up. And later on, I got called up twice again, but then I was told that I would had to wait some more.
Anyway, as for my first match, that was a quick defeat. I was not focused, and certainly not warmed up enough despite constantly moving my limbs around. I lost hard against the Spanish man who would become the champion of the division. Later on I learned that he practiced Taekwondo before, hence explaining his very, very fast kicks and unusual stances.
My second match was during teamstyle sparring, once again I had to fill in for someone else. Not that I minded it. After getting another bye, I had to fight a fellow guy from my own school, which was a fun and disciplined fight.
Lastly, my third match was against an Irish, who placed second during the individuals and second during teamstyle as well. This was the most exciting match for me, because I was concentrated, fought well and learned to read my opponent's mind. He was getting predictable and I was able to score nice points. In the end, my team placed 4th out of the 7 teams.
As always, we collected a ton of medals for Holland, which is rewarding as usual. Not me, but natural talented ones, most of them still very young. During the evening, the Brotherhood Dinner happened so fast for me, maybe it's because there were very few speeches to listen to this year. It was nonetheless a nice conclusion towards a great event.
On a noteworthy side note, It's crazy to know that Bruce Lee, Elvis Presley and Chuck Norris were
involved at some point with Kenpo Karate and at IKC 2012, black belt teachers
mentioned them plus Benny Urquidez(the Jet) and Donnie Yen(with his Wing Chun style in the Ip Man movies) during seminars and the best part is that I recognized them all by their names. In
fact, we're all related in martial arts.
Next year, the IKC will take place in Boston, Massachusetts. Sounds great!
