December 19, 2008
36th All-Japan National Karate Championships
The 36th Japan Cup Karatedo Kata Champions
Male- Takashi Katada (L)
Female - Nao Morooka (R)
The exciting semi-final match between Ko Matsuhisa (red) and Ryutaro Araga (blue). Matsuhisa went on to claim first place.
Hey everyone, time for a quick review of the 36th All-Japan National Karate Championships that Wessel and I went to recently.
This tournament, compared to the WKF Karate World Championships that we also attended, had a different kind of intensity. The competitors fought with a more “drive-forward” approach than some of the athletes in the WKF Worlds, and as a result of that there were a few more injuries including two knock outs. This also happened because competitors represent their home prefectures and just as everyone wants to win for their country, so too do these people for their own hometown.
The match that was the most exciting for me was the semifinals with Ko Matsuhisa and Ryutaro Araga. The fight started off slow with a few exchanges here and there and Araga making many advances and feints using his front leg, but nothing really exciting happened. Until the halfway point, Araga slowly built up to his 4 point lead over Matsuhisa. Suddenly, Matsuhisa scored an ura-mawashi (reverse roundhouse kick) to score 3 points and close the gap. After that, he scored another point with a kizami zuki (front jab), and tied the score with 10 seconds left. Matsuhisa then managed to get in another kizami zuki at the buzzer to win the nail-biting match. That neither got hurt during the tough fight shows just how much control these top level fighters have.
Another thing I really liked was the men and women’s demos. They got a lot of “ohh”s and “ahh”s from the audience, including us. We filmed both of them entirely and I’ll try and find a way to upload them onto my karate channel on YouTube.
Unfortunately, Wessel and I were so drawn into the matches that we didn’t think of pulling out the camera for those… Shows what good camera men we are. We did manage to get this snapshot of Matsuhisa and Araga though.
- Dave