Sempai Michi Nagase and Kris Erickson fought in Men's middleweight and heavyweight respectively of this qualifier tournament for the World Weight Category Championships in August.

The Middleweight division had a total of sixteen fighters and included top fighters such as Zensaku Munn, Shohei Yamamoto, Tyson Naito, Dominic Adam, Michi Nagase, Mike McDougall and Zbigniew Koszela. Sempai Michi won two fights then faced off against Shohei Yamamoto from LA, who was by far the strongest contender in North America at the moment. 30 seconds into the semi-final match, Sempai Michi was downed by Ushi Mawashi Geri. The technique earned Shohei  a victory by Ippon(Full-Point). Sempai Michi was naturally disappointed by the loss, but the fact that he still came up to the top 4 spot out of these great fighters maintains his confidence level. Kris Erickson flew to Montreal for the first time and put on an excellent performance (refer to his write-up below).

After all, none of the Canadians were picked for the World Weight Category this time while US and Costa Rica managed to acquire a spot in Tokyo. This is an obvious downturn to us compared to four years ago when we saw three fighters represent our country, two of which were from our club. We need to work harder and play catch-up.

After the event, we enjoyed ourselves at Sayonara Party where all the officials and fighters got together and deepened friendships. Since we first participated in 2003, we have never missed this tournament. I strongly feel that friendly exchanges among fighters in Eastern and Western Canada such as this is the only way to give us strength needed to form a functional national team for the World Tournament in 2011.  It is safe to say we are on the right track towards the goal. One of the positive notes this year was that I saw more fighters participate from our organization than previous years. We should keep this trend going to raise the caliber of our fighters.

At a dojo level, I would like to mention that Sempai Johnny Leblanc came and joined our team. Sempai Johnny now lives in Moncton, NB and operates a dojo in the local area. It was very nice of him to travel in order to support Sempai Michi and Kris as a coach. His intense characteristic during the event provided them with extra energy, and advice based on his ample tournament experience gave them the edge needed to win. It was like a dojo reunion.

Seeing Sempai Johnny in Montreal makes me realize that fighting at these international tournaments not only gives us positive impact on individual karate career, but also gives us an unbreakable team spirit. Facing these world's top contenders is extremely intense, and our fighters go through stressful moments and various feelings such as upset and happy, ups and downs, discouraged and motivated. These experiences happening right on-site are only shared by the team members. The more we travel together, the stronger the bonding among us becomes. It is a very encouraging side-effect of the international competition.

Lastly, I would like to thank IKOK-C for letting us participate in the event. Special thanks goes to Shihan Andre Gilbert and his tournament staff for organizing such a great event. The fighters, officiating and demonstrations were all topnotch and we already look forward to next year. Osu.

Tats Nakamura

In preparation for the Montreal tournament Sempai Michi and I created a game plan to address some of our weaknesses that were exposed in Los Angeles.  Being able to see the strength of our competition led us to create a workout routine to improve our explosiveness and create greater punching and kicking power.  In order to harness this increase in power we also collaborated to make new footwork drills to improve our balance and coordination.  To get ideas for our drills we researched what the top fighters were doing from the internet and Japanese magazines as well as getting different perspectives by travelling to Sensei Dean’s dojo in Langley to train with his class.   

Training consisted of attending regular class as well as fighter training twice a week.  In addition Sempai Michi and I varied our routine by weight training and swimming at local gyms.  Fighter training was split into two routines for upper and lower body.  All classes started with shadow boxing and footwork drills using rope ladder and jumping obstacles, then moved into explosive pushing and jumping exercises and always finished with 3-2-2 drills on the big mitt and rounds of sparring.  All of this hard training pushed our physical and mental limits as we reached closer to the tournament.   

By the time we arrived in Montreal my state of mind was clear and confident as I was motivated by the memory of my recent defeat and assured that the hard training we had endured over the past two months had left our bodies in peak condition.  The morning of the tournament we had to be up earlier than normal as our first matches started at 10 am.  My first opponent was from the Lamarre dojo in Montreal. After letting him attack for the first 20 seconds of the match I found that my low kicks were landing and began my attack,  countering with strong gedan mawashi geri on the outside and backing him up with uppercuts and hiza geri on the inside.  Nearing the end of the round the kicks took their toll earning me a wazari (half-point) and the win.   

After a long rest we returned for the evening event at 5pm.  In the semi-finals I was now scheduled to fight Jordan Forget from the Calgary Dojo.  We had met back in the Vancouver Cup finals last December, but Jordan had had recent success in LA and Calgary and I needed to stay focused to earn the win. Again Jordan was able to withstand the pressure of my attack and counter back with strong punches and kicks but all the stamina training paid off as I was able to maintain my attack through two extensions and earn the valuable win. 

The final match was against Victor Potvin from Montreal.  He had quickly dispatched of the competition on his side of the bracket and looked strong coming into the finals.  My strategy was to focus on his aggressive punching techniques and counter with low kicks.  This strategy proved to be too defensive and I was surprised by a spinning back kick that caught me in the ribs, earning him Ippon (full point) and a much deserved win.  Although disappointed with the loss, I felt that I had made progress in my fighting technique and spirit.  With this new experience I am now able to go back to the dojo and improve for the next event that will lead me to my ultimate goal of competing in the World Tournament in 2011. 

I would like to thank Sensei Tats, Sempai Michi and all of the members of VKK for their continued support, Sempai Johnny for taking the time to coach us for the tournament and Shihan Gilbert and the Montreal team for hosting another successful event. 

Kris Erickson
Vancouver Kyokushin Karate

Official results and more photos will be posted at the organizer's web site.
    www.karate-andregilbert.com

More photos will be available at www.kyokushin.ca