See the journey from beginner to tournament-ready
He embraced the training for his first-ever competitive fight with a spirit that was great to see and a privilege to be part of.
Watching competition is one thing. Taking part is entirely different. It's a lot of fun, but it takes a lot of guts.
The challenge of getting tournament-ready is daunting. So it was a privilege to coach and guide Alessandro to his first kumite tournament, where he faced one of Wales’ most experienced senior fighters.
Aside from conditioning, Alessandro began adapting his kumite for competition, so-called 'sport' karate.
This is radically different from the 'budo' we normally train, and the mode of karate that Alessandro has been brought up learning in the dojo. Despite being led by two immensely experienced international competitors (senseis Chico and Chrissie Mbakwe), unlearning budo habits and replacing them with skills for tournament kumite represented a challenge.
Tournament kumite is about point-scoring. This objective rejects many critical aspects of traditional karate-do and the 'budo way', where one decisive strike should incapacitate an opponent.
Point-scoring requires the opponent to get back up, fight on and score their own points! Although this distinction is satirical, it means competition (sport karate) and traditional (budo) karate training are as different as night and day.
After the technical kihon and kata stages, Alessandro faced Sensei Lynton and Sensei Darren in kumite, where he demonstrated true character, proper fighting spirit and determination.
As a result, WSKU add another shodan to its ranks.
View more videos & clips of our training
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