Karate crew kick it with best of them
AFTER winning a swag of medals at the recent Queensland State Titles, the Cairnsbased Matsumoto Karate Academy is aiming to take on the best in Australia later this year.
The academy boasts 250 students, including members from Townsville, Innisfail and Cairns.
It sent six promising students to represent the club at the Queensland State Titles, held late last month – four seniors and two juniors. Four of those students have represented and won medals for Queensland at national level.
Katelyn Row, Eoghan Kuiper, Cocona Sakamoto, Mark Porter, Mikoto Nomura and Tatsuya Shiihara all represented the local club with pride and came away with nine medals (two gold, five silver and two bronze).
Matsumoto Karate Academy co-president Kate Walker-Edwards praised the group’s efforts against the best in Queensland.
“They did extremely well considering it was such a small group we sent down this year,” Walker-Edwards said.
“Normally we send 10 or more students down, only half a dozen went down this year. To come away with nine medals – that is a really fantastic effort.
“The students that went down have competed before and are aware of the extra effort and additional training that is required.
“It really paid off.”
To qualify for the National Karate Championships later this year, students needed to place in the Queensland State Titles, with Row, Sakamoto and Shiihara to represent the North Queensland club.
“They are all high achievers in the club and we all have great expectations for all of them who compete at the nationals,” Walker-Edwards said.
“In order to compete there, you need to have a high standard and it is a huge jump to go SPAR SESSION: Mark Porter and Eoghan Kuiper. from the states to the nationals.
“All the students that are going have been there before and we have high expectations of them.
Walker-Edwards is counting on some home-ground advantage for the Far North contingent when they tackle the best the nation has to offer in early August.
“We still have a few months to train for that and it is in Queensland so we will be aim- ing to use that home-ground advantage,” she said.
“It has been a few years since it has been in Queensland but it is great to have it back. It is really an exciting time for us as a sport in North Queensland.”
Brisbane-based representative from the local club Shiihara claimed one gold and two silver medals at the recent Queensland titles and will go on now to take on the best of the best.
Martial artists enter a flow state as they must pay full attention, knowing they could get kicked, punched or hit if they don’t, thus providing “feedback”, and against a wellmatched opponent amazing things can happen.
We often see fighters step up and perform like they never have before when they fight a higher-ranked opponent.
While they may make it look flawless, they are more likely just keeping up, and going back and forth … until WHAMMO!! They spontaneously perform a move they’d never done before of such creativity that it changes the momentum of the fight.
Certain brain regions turn off, allowing other parts which do not normally “talk” to each other to communicate. Researchers call this state transient hypofrontality and it can be trained for and triggered.
All athletes need to be challenged often by better or wellmatched opponents – it’s how we and the game evolve. Rob Gronbeck is a Cairns performance psychology coach