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THE 19th National Karate Union of Gt. Britain Championships
Report: Terry O'Neill Photos: Norma Harvey; Mike Reid; Kate Dyer;
Bob Poynton
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KUGB Championships - P.Allan (Referee)
Just one short of their
20th anniversary, the Karate Union of Great Britain
held their National Championship at the National Sports
Centre, Crystal Palace on 4th May 1985.
Inset:
A good 'grab and punch' combination is executed in the
eliminations as referees, B. Higgins and P.
Allan 'mirror' the match. Photo: K. Dyer
Inset (right): Action During the Individual Ladies Kata
final. Photo: N. Harvey
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KUGB
Championship - Full Article
The days eliminations started
on time and so began the difficult task of deciding which
select group would emerge at the other end, to appear in the
evenings finals.
New
categories
Two new categories, - Boys
Kata and Girls Kata were inaugurated, making a total of 12
events split evenly into 6 Kumite (sparring) and 6 Kata (form)
categories. The championships, as always attracted a huge
entry. Of the K.U.G.B's. 425 clubs, 109 of them took up the
annual challenge. The Union is divided into 5 regions and
the breakdown of entries was:
South - 42 clubs; North - 36
clubs; Central - 23 clubs; Wales, - 5 clubs and Scotland -
3 clubs.
Eliminations
It is an unfortunate but unavoidable
fact that a number of very deserving competitiors will be
eliminated during these early rounds, Often a person who really
should be a finalist will be beaten out in the eliminations
in his pool, a less talented competitor will get through.
This is just the luck of the draw. . . 'recognised' talented
entries are kept as separate as is possible when the championship
draw is made on the preceeding evening. Of course, in the
case of the kata events - particularly the two senior categories
- initiating the points system of judging, right-at the onset
would prevent the situation where one top performer eliminates
another of similar ability on heian (basic) kata performance
to a flag system.
Whilst on the next area a less
worthy competitor wins through to the evening. The points
system - the top scorers from no matter what area go through
- would be more definitive of the best kata people - but there
is the time factor to be taken into account, it would take
considerably longer to judge.
Just as an example of this
disparity, I saw an excellent performance of kata by a Turkish
Nidan (2nd degree black belt), resident in London - Meullit
Yilmaz. A very small man, who is trained by Masao Kawazoe
Senseiat Eqrls Court dojo, his kata was well worthy of the
finals of any championship, yet he went out in the last round
of the eliminations. It is my belief that . . had he got through
he would have been well placed in the final. No disrespect
is meant for his opponent, nor any recriminations on the judges
of that match - both mens kata were good and there was little
between them, yet only one could go through. I'm sure there
were other similar occurrances.
Special
Awards
The evenings finals began with
the usual introduction of the K.U.G,B. hierarchy and several
special awards were made. The first of these was to The Boss;
Professor Keinosuke Enoeda - chief instructor to the KUGB.
In recognition of his sterling work in the spread of authentic
karate over the 20 years since he left Japan, the Japan Karate
Association presented Enoeda with a specially commissioned
statue of the founder, Gichin Funakoshi. Emissary of the JKA
for this presentation was Yukichi Tabata Sensei - the foremost
Japanese protege of Master Enoeda.
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