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Newton Tournament
February 22, 2003 / Newton, Surrey Over 100 competitors
gathered together at Frank Hurt School on Saturday, Feb 22, 2003. Fighters
ranging from 7 to 40 years old competed in the twenty different
categories in this one of the most traditional
tournaments in BC. A total of seven competitors representing VKK
fought very hard and a lot of them captured a medal. In the Kids contact
division, Pasha of Vancouver West Dojo again put on an excellent performance. His knee and
front kicks were executed very effectively throughout all his fights. The
Vancouver Cup champion once again proved his strength and won the gold
medal.
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The 3rd North American Weight
Category Tournament
March15,2003/Montreal, Quebec, Canada
The 3rd North American Weight
Category Tournament was held on a grand scale in a historical city,
Montreal, Canada. The event gathered more than 120 competitors from most
of the Canadian regions, New York, Los Angels, Costa Rica, France and
Japan. What made this tournament very special was not only that the event
was well attended by over 1,000 spectators, but also that this was a
selection tournament to decide North American team members for the
Kyokushin's biggest event, World Tournament in November this year. Johnny
LeBlanc competed from VKK and came up to the top 8. |
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SPRING 2003 BELT PROMOTION
TEST
April 27 2003 Killarney Community center, Vancouver The event made
a great success with a total of 104 test applicants and many parents/friends
in attendance. The record breaking number once again proved the constant
growth of our club. Many advanced combinations in Moving basics were performed well, and
strong spirit was demonstrated by huge Kiai in Kihon (Basics). We would like
to thank all students, parents and friends for their support to our club.
Together, we can build up our children and people in the Vancouver community
to be strong physically, mentally and spiritually , now and well into the
future. Osu.! |
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THE 20TH
CANADIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
May 10 2003 at University of British Columbia, Vancouver /Kids Contact
Division>Pasha Mykhaylov (Van West) : 1st Place/13-14 Boys
Contact >Albert Tio (Van East) : 1st Place/13-14 Girls
Contact Division>Esther Nathe (Van East) : 1st Place/17 & over
Lightweight Colored Belt>Reza Hamidizadeh (Downtown): 2nd Place/Tatsuro Takahashi (Richmond East): 1st Place/17 & over
Heavyweight Colored Belt>Michi Nagase (Richmond East): 2nd Place/ Men's Open>Eisuke Mochizuki (Downtown): 2nd Place,
Chris Fread (Downtown): Lost in 1st round,
Johnny Le Blanc (Richmond East) : Lost in 1st round |
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American
Open 2003 &
The 4th Women's World Tournament
June 21 2003, New York City, USA
Johnny Le Blanc of VKK competed in this historically successful tournament
where over 120 male & female top fighters gathered together. Johnny won his
first bout with strong upper cutts. In his 2nd round, he fought
exceptionally well in the tough bout. Johnny looked very calm, totally
absorbed and concentrated in exchanging techniques with the Russian.
Although Johnny lost the match by a very close margin, he undoubtedly put on
his best performance ever in his fighting career, proving that the
amount of the sweat we ran paid off in the competition. |
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Summer Knock-out Party / July 5, 2003, Granville Island Brewing
Instead of training
together in dogi at dojo, students enjoyed talking each other in casual
clothing. An event such as this gives us a great opportunity to get to
know each other and to strengthen friendships among our students.The event was full
of fun. Several demonstrations performed by our kids, ladies and fighters
kicked off the party with an exciting atmosphere. Special celebration for
Sempai Mellissa and Johnny for their superb work in New York took place in
the middle of the party. The surprise cake and song were given to Joko for
his birthday. And door prizes with some board breakings drew lots of
applause from the participants. |
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SUMMER TRAINING
CAMP 2003 /
August 1 - 4 / Ashton Creek, BC
The camp site, Ashton Creek, has a huge flat filed for outdoor
training, a nice cool river for refreshment after each class and a mid size
gym for special training and party. While we had informative and hard training
provided by some of our high ranking instructors, we also had a very special moment for our own club. Mark Ray, who
joined Kyokushin over ten years ago, successfully completed the 10-man Kumite
and received 1st degree Black Belt. The fighting test was the last part of the
whole grading, which originally began this January. We would like to
congratulate on his success in achieving the milestone in his karate career.
You did it, Mark! |
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KARATE DEMO in EAST VANCOUVER 2003
August 16 / Killarney Community Center, Vancouver This year's
annual festival, "Summer Sizzler", at Killarney Community Center saw
thousands of parents and children support the action packed activities.
It is one of the best opportunities to show our way of training to the
public and let them know what Kyokushin Karate is. We demonstrated various
aspects of class training. A big hand from the audience was given when some
of our members successfully broke a wooden board with a punch and a kick.
They seemed to be surprised not only by the speed and the power of our
techniques, but also by how well-disciplined our students were. |
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FALL 2003 BELT PROMOTION
TEST
October 12 2003 / Killarney Community Center, Vancouver A total of
112 students applied for it and did their best in the exam for each belt's
requirements. Although it was rather cool with typical Vancouver's winter
rain, the event gym was full of heated atmosphere generated by students'
strong Kiai and spirits. Many beautiful techniques and combinations
were seen in the fighting exam. The quality level of Katas demonstrated by
some of the colored belts was very high, proving that the perfection of those karate techniques can be achieved
regardless of student's age. We only need to stay focused and keep on
training. |
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THE 8TH WORLD
TOURNAMENT
November 1 -3 2003 / Tokyo, Japan Over two hundred fifty top
fighters around the globe competed in this most prestigious and biggest
Kyokuhsin event. The three day event drew over twenty five thousand
spectators and displayed many world class techniques and spirits. Johnny
LeBlanc participated as a competitor representing Canada and Sempai
Katrina Mitchell supported the Team Canada as an assistant coach. Kiyama
Hitoshi from Japan showed strong determination and captured the Gold Medal
bringing back the World Champion title to Japan since the last tournament
four years ago. |
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Vancouver Cup 2003 Karate
Championships
December 14 2003 / Vancouver, BC A total of sixty-nine competitors
entered the event which showcased Kyokushin techniques and spirit in front
of a full house. Mellissa Murakami, Chung Kai Huang, Jonathan Aumont and
Dominic Adam respectively placed 1st in the adults' women's, lightweight,
middleweight and heavyweight division. The anual event is organized by VKK
and this year was its forth attempt. It is certain that the tournament's
reputation has been spreading in Vancouver by word if mouth as both scale
and quality of it becomes better each year. More info about the event is
here. |
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Kai&Junko's Wedding
and VKK Year-End Party
December 28 2003 / Richmond
On December 28, a young couple in Vancouver
got married. They are Kai and Junko who train with us in Kyokushin Karate.
In order to celebrate their marriage in the world famous Kyokushin way, we
put on a demonstration at their wedding party. After the wedding party, we
moved to the Richmond Karaoke Box and continued enjoying the evening
together. The place has a large screen on which a song appears along
with a motion picture. Many tunes were sung in different languages by
our very talented? singers from different nationalities. |
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