Northern Kickboxing Tourney slated Feb. 16 and 17

KICKBOXING enthusiasts in Northern Luzon will gather at the Igorot Garden-Burnham Park on February 16 and 17 for a Kickboxing Championship that hopes to advance the preparation and for the selection of the country’s national team for the South East Asian Games (SEA Games).

Sensei John Cayohen, president of the Northern Luzon Kickboxing Alliance (NLKA) announced for two days, players from various gyms, clubs and martial arts organizations in Northern Luzon will compete at the Igorot garden which coincides with the Panagbenga Festival. The tourney is the second of such event since the emergence of the NLKA as an organization late last year.

The first was on November 30, 2018.

Cay-ohen, who is currently the chief instructor of Scorpion Martial Arts explained unlike other combative sports like Muay Thai, boxing, wushu among others, kickboxing will only see its debut in the SEA games for the first time during the 34th staging hosted by the Philippines this year.

“We have no existing national kickboxing team and so the Philippine Olympic Committee through various kickboxing group will still have to form the team,” said Cay-ohen

Kru Noriel Aquisio of the Max Fusion Martial Arts and secretary general of the group said the rules promulgated by the World Alliance of Kickboxing Organization (WAKO) will be adopted during the tournament.

Aquisio who is also the chief referee, said WAKO rules are used in international competitions such as SEA games.

While WAKO has three set of rules, NLKA will only compete under the kickboxing without low kick. The other set of Kickboxing rules is the Kickboxing with low kick and Kickboxing Light.

According to Sensei Edwin Aliong of the Universal Martial Arts, as of press time, several martial arts group had already registered their players for the event. Aliong who is the NLKA Vice President for operation and the match maker of the tournament said that he expects more entries to be registered just few days before the tournament.