Karate [Archive] - Page 3 - Kung Fu Magazine Forums

GeneChing

10-25-2016, 08:50 AM

I trust Japan will do Karate (http://www.martialartsmart.com/karate-styles.html) right. Who here remembers the scandal when Korea launched TKD (http://www.martialartsmart.com/tae-kwon-do-styles.html)?

Karate Olympic debut shines light on martial art (https://www.japantoday.com/category/sports/view/karate-olympic-debut-shines-light-on-martial-art)
SPORTS OCT. 25, 2016 - 02:30PM JST

https://japantoday.scdn2.secure.raxcdn.com/images/size/x/2016/10/73cbe28204038bef4ef6b4285aeac7fb9fb24531.jpg
A karate competition takes place in Tokyo on August 22, 2016, to select Japanese representatives for the world championships in Linz, Austria
AFP

NAHA — Hollywood may have kicked karate onto the world stage, but its first-ever Olympic inclusion at the Tokyo 2020 Games promises to shine a light on the rich history of the discipline.

At 78, sensei Masahiro Nakamoto has been waiting decades for this decision, insisting there is far more to the martial art than the caricature depicted in films such as “The Karate Kid” and by action stars Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme.

“This is the art of defence,” the karate master told AFP at his dojo in Naha, Okinawa—an island chain some 600 kilometers (375 miles) from the southern tip of mainland Japan.

“You don’t go just kicking and punching, you receive your opponent’s blow. Defending yourself translates into offence,” he added.

At the Tokyo Games, 80 competitors will take part in the Karate event. It joins surfing, skateboarding, climbing and baseball-softball as new sports included for the 2020 edition.

“The dreams of the world’s karate athletes came true when the (International Olympic Committee) made its decision,” said Japan Karate do Federation vice president Shigeo Kurihara.

“It’s an historic event—it was a day of joy for all of us.”

A blend of indigenous fighting styles, karate was born in Okinawa in the 15th century when the area was ruled by the independent Ryukyu Kingdom. Strong trading links meant the sport was also influenced by Chinese martial arts.

It is far older than the modern Olympics and today has at least 10 million registered practitioners worldwide, and yet it has struggled to make the case for inclusion in the Games.

By contrast, judo, a Japanese martial art, and Korea’s taekwondo are already permanent fixtures on the roster. Judo made its Olympic debut when Tokyo hosted the 1964 Games while taekwondo made its first appearance at the global event in 1988.

Integrating karate into the Olympics has been delayed by divisions in the movement around the world, with stalwarts long preferring to adhere to their interpretation rather than to work together to create an global art form.

“The variety of styles – more than 20 – complicated efforts to unify karate,” said Francis Didier, vice president of the World Karate Federation.

“It took a bit too long to modernise the rules of competition,” he admitted.

Sport karate, for example, calls for competition rules where opponents have to control their blows, while traditional karate allows for harder shots but requires significant protective gear, such as boxing gloves and helmets.

The martial art was only brought to Tokyo in the early 20th century when Gichin Funakoshi, regarded as the father of modern karate, moved from Naha.

“Okinawa was the place where karate’s spirituality developed,” explains Kurihara.

Frustrations remain however, that Okinawa’s role in the development of karate has been airbrushed out of history. For Nakamoto, the Olympic Games in four years time, is a chance to redress that.

“This is a great chance to show the world where karate has its roots. The world may be surprised to know that it was developed here,” he said, adding that it was inexorably linked to the island chain’s politics.

When the Ryukyu Kingdom ruled Okinawa for more than 400 years starting in the 15th century, brewers hired karate masters to protect shipments of indigenous rice-based liquor called Awamori, Nakamoto explained.

A vital tool of diplomacy at the time—keeping leaders on good terms with China and Japan.

“Brewers could sell their surplus so it was the jobs of karate masters to protect convoys from robbery,” Nakamoto said.

“In summer, they would rest outside and drink the spirits—so it became part of the skill, to defend ourselves from attack while drunk, or asleep.”

Karate expert and author Stephane Fauchard insists inclusion at the Tokyo 2020 Games will bring people to the sport.

“This is going to boost the sport’s visibility. The Games are a great showcase,” he told AFP.

Still, Fauchard doesn’t expect one big happy karate family.

He explained: “Sport karate will continue to develop in national federations while traditional karate will still be taught in schools. They’ll both benefit from the media attention brought by the Olympics and continue to exist side by side.”

Karate will still have to prove its credentials to retain an Olympic sport beyond 2020 however, the IOC will review whether its inclusion was a success.

Didier argues it’s clear why karate should remain in the games after 2020.

“Karate is relatively inexpensive, and athletes compete in the same arena as their judo and wrestling counterparts, and can be run over a few days.”

GeneChing

01-28-2019, 09:43 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajLoYC3kNPI

My Man at Arms: Art of War (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70140-Man-at-Arms-Art-of-War-Original-Series-from-EL-REY-Network-with-Gene-Ching) co-star, Danny Trejo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=1449), was the ring announcer and several friends went. They all had glowing reports of the event.

GeneChing

02-21-2019, 10:04 AM

Games
‘It’s not just doing the worm’: breakdancing could become Olympic sport in 2024
• IOC to make decision for Paris 2024 by December 2020
• Karate, squash, billiard sports and chess rejected
Press Association

Thu 21 Feb 2019 07.36 EST Last modified on Thu 21 Feb 2019 11.31 EST

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cb7cd5bc9f22354bca46629ebd1fb05f84841b55/0_52_2790_1674/master/2790.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&
The head of the Paris 2024 organising committee said breakdancing would make the Olympics ‘more urban’ and ‘more artistic’. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images
Breakdancing pioneer Richard “Crazy Legs” Colon, who as leader of the US hip-hop group Rock Steady Crew is widely credited with turning the craze into a global phenomenon, has hailed its prospective inclusion in the Olympic Games.

Breakdancing has been confirmed as one of four sports, along with surfing, climbing and skateboarding, which will be put forward to the International Olympic Committee for inclusion in the Paris 2024 Games.

It follows the successful introduction of breakdancing at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires last year, for which Colon, a 53-year-old from The Bronx in New York, was invited to be a part of the judging panel.

Colon said: “This is about two worlds coming together. They each have their own history and I think that we can carefully do this in a manner that is respectful to the essence of both. The dance represents many people who come from struggle and have nothing, and now that has translated into an opportunity to see the world, to compete and, most importantly, to build bridges between cultures and break down stereotypes.”

Colon was a founding member of the Rock Steady Crew in 1977 and helped it develop from what was initially a New York sub-culture into a style which was recognised and copied around the world.

The group’s major UK hit, ‘(Hey You) The Rocksteady Crew’ reached number six in the charts in October 1983.

“I was brought in as one of the judges in Argentina and as you are watching the kids getting their medals, you kind of start to feel a little bit emotional,” added Colon.

Paco Boxy, director of the British Breaking League which organises competitions across the UK,added: “I think it’s fantastic news, not only for the young generation but also for the credibility of breakdancing to be classed as a sport.

“A lot of people will look at breakdancing as just spinning on your head or doing the worm, but the people that I know train like athletes. They go to the gym swimming, train every day. It will always be a dance first and foremost, but it has turned into a sport.

The selection of the four sports by the Paris organising committee brings bad news for squash and karate, the latter of which will make its Olympic debut in Tokyo next year.

A statement from World Karate Federation president Antonio Espinos read: “Our sport has grown exponentially over the last years and we still haven’t had the chance to prove our value as an Olympic sport since we will be making our debut as an Olympic discipline in Tokyo 2020.

“Over the last months we have worked relentlessly, together with the French Federation, to achieve our goal of being included in Paris 2024. We believed that we had met all the requirements and that we had the perfect conditions to be added to the sports programme. However, we have learned today that our dream will not be coming true.”

In a joint statement, the World Squash Federation and PSA World Tour said: “The proposed list of four sports only, of which three sports are already confirmed by the IOC on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic programme, leads to a belief that Paris 2024 and the IOC favoured sports already in the Olympic programme, leaving practically no opportunity for other sports.

“The unity that our sport enjoys globally is exceptional and is getting stronger by the day. WSF and PSA are supported by the entire squash community and, with our athletes at the forefront, have run a strong campaign that respected the timeline and the criteria set by Paris 2024 and the IOC.”

THREADS
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
Gung Fu & Breakdancing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?50673-Gung-Fu-amp-Breakdancing)
2024 Paris Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68366-2024-Paris-Olympics)

GeneChing

02-21-2019, 10:04 AM

Games
‘It’s not just doing the worm’: breakdancing could become Olympic sport in 2024
• IOC to make decision for Paris 2024 by December 2020
• Karate, squash, billiard sports and chess rejected
Press Association

Thu 21 Feb 2019 07.36 EST Last modified on Thu 21 Feb 2019 11.31 EST

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cb7cd5bc9f22354bca46629ebd1fb05f84841b55/0_52_2790_1674/master/2790.jpg?
The head of the Paris 2024 organising committee said breakdancing would make the Olympics ‘more urban’ and ‘more artistic’. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

Breakdancing pioneer Richard “Crazy Legs” Colon, who as leader of the US hip-hop group Rock Steady Crew is widely credited with turning the craze into a global phenomenon, has hailed its prospective inclusion in the Olympic Games.

Breakdancing has been confirmed as one of four sports, along with surfing, climbing and skateboarding, which will be put forward to the International Olympic Committee for inclusion in the Paris 2024 Games.

It follows the successful introduction of breakdancing at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires last year, for which Colon, a 53-year-old from The Bronx in New York, was invited to be a part of the judging panel.

Colon said: “This is about two worlds coming together. They each have their own history and I think that we can carefully do this in a manner that is respectful to the essence of both. The dance represents many people who come from struggle and have nothing, and now that has translated into an opportunity to see the world, to compete and, most importantly, to build bridges between cultures and break down stereotypes.”

Colon was a founding member of the Rock Steady Crew in 1977 and helped it develop from what was initially a New York sub-culture into a style which was recognised and copied around the world.

The group’s major UK hit, ‘(Hey You) The Rocksteady Crew’ reached number six in the charts in October 1983.

“I was brought in as one of the judges in Argentina and as you are watching the kids getting their medals, you kind of start to feel a little bit emotional,” added Colon.

Paco Boxy, director of the British Breaking League which organises competitions across the UK,added: “I think it’s fantastic news, not only for the young generation but also for the credibility of breakdancing to be classed as a sport.

“A lot of people will look at breakdancing as just spinning on your head or doing the worm, but the people that I know train like athletes. They go to the gym swimming, train every day. It will always be a dance first and foremost, but it has turned into a sport.

The selection of the four sports by the Paris organising committee brings bad news for squash and karate, the latter of which will make its Olympic debut in Tokyo next year.

A statement from World Karate Federation president Antonio Espinos read: “Our sport has grown exponentially over the last years and we still haven’t had the chance to prove our value as an Olympic sport since we will be making our debut as an Olympic discipline in Tokyo 2020.

“Over the last months we have worked relentlessly, together with the French Federation, to achieve our goal of being included in Paris 2024. We believed that we had met all the requirements and that we had the perfect conditions to be added to the sports programme. However, we have learned today that our dream will not be coming true.”

In a joint statement, the World Squash Federation and PSA World Tour said: “The proposed list of four sports only, of which three sports are already confirmed by the IOC on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic programme, leads to a belief that Paris 2024 and the IOC favoured sports already in the Olympic programme, leaving practically no opportunity for other sports.

“The unity that our sport enjoys globally is exceptional and is getting stronger by the day. WSF and PSA are supported by the entire squash community and, with our athletes at the forefront, have run a strong campaign that respected the timeline and the criteria set by Paris 2024 and the IOC.”

THREADS
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
Gung Fu & Breakdancing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?50673-Gung-Fu-amp-Breakdancing)
2024 Paris Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68366-2024-Paris-Olympics)

GeneChing

02-21-2019, 10:04 AM

Games
‘It’s not just doing the worm’: breakdancing could become Olympic sport in 2024
• IOC to make decision for Paris 2024 by December 2020
• Karate, squash, billiard sports and chess rejected
Press Association

Thu 21 Feb 2019 07.36 EST Last modified on Thu 21 Feb 2019 11.31 EST

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cb7cd5bc9f22354bca46629ebd1fb05f84841b55/0_52_2790_1674/master/2790.jpg?width=1225&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&
The head of the Paris 2024 organising committee said breakdancing would make the Olympics ‘more urban’ and ‘more artistic’. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

Breakdancing pioneer Richard “Crazy Legs” Colon, who as leader of the US hip-hop group Rock Steady Crew is widely credited with turning the craze into a global phenomenon, has hailed its prospective inclusion in the Olympic Games.

Breakdancing has been confirmed as one of four sports, along with surfing, climbing and skateboarding, which will be put forward to the International Olympic Committee for inclusion in the Paris 2024 Games.

It follows the successful introduction of breakdancing at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires last year, for which Colon, a 53-year-old from The Bronx in New York, was invited to be a part of the judging panel.

Colon said: “This is about two worlds coming together. They each have their own history and I think that we can carefully do this in a manner that is respectful to the essence of both. The dance represents many people who come from struggle and have nothing, and now that has translated into an opportunity to see the world, to compete and, most importantly, to build bridges between cultures and break down stereotypes.”

Colon was a founding member of the Rock Steady Crew in 1977 and helped it develop from what was initially a New York sub-culture into a style which was recognised and copied around the world.

The group’s major UK hit, ‘(Hey You) The Rocksteady Crew’ reached number six in the charts in October 1983.

“I was brought in as one of the judges in Argentina and as you are watching the kids getting their medals, you kind of start to feel a little bit emotional,” added Colon.

Paco Boxy, director of the British Breaking League which organises competitions across the UK,added: “I think it’s fantastic news, not only for the young generation but also for the credibility of breakdancing to be classed as a sport.

“A lot of people will look at breakdancing as just spinning on your head or doing the worm, but the people that I know train like athletes. They go to the gym swimming, train every day. It will always be a dance first and foremost, but it has turned into a sport.

The selection of the four sports by the Paris organising committee brings bad news for squash and karate, the latter of which will make its Olympic debut in Tokyo next year.

A statement from World Karate Federation president Antonio Espinos read: “Our sport has grown exponentially over the last years and we still haven’t had the chance to prove our value as an Olympic sport since we will be making our debut as an Olympic discipline in Tokyo 2020.

“Over the last months we have worked relentlessly, together with the French Federation, to achieve our goal of being included in Paris 2024. We believed that we had met all the requirements and that we had the perfect conditions to be added to the sports programme. However, we have learned today that our dream will not be coming true.”

In a joint statement, the World Squash Federation and PSA World Tour said: “The proposed list of four sports only, of which three sports are already confirmed by the IOC on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic programme, leads to a belief that Paris 2024 and the IOC favoured sports already in the Olympic programme, leaving practically no opportunity for other sports.

“The unity that our sport enjoys globally is exceptional and is getting stronger by the day. WSF and PSA are supported by the entire squash community and, with our athletes at the forefront, have run a strong campaign that respected the timeline and the criteria set by Paris 2024 and the IOC.”

THREADS
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
Gung Fu & Breakdancing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?50673-Gung-Fu-amp-Breakdancing)
2024 Paris Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68366-2024-Paris-Olympics)

GeneChing

02-21-2019, 10:05 AM

Games
‘It’s not just doing the worm’: breakdancing could become Olympic sport in 2024
• IOC to make decision for Paris 2024 by December 2020
• Karate, squash, billiard sports and chess rejected
Press Association

Thu 21 Feb 2019 07.36 EST Last modified on Thu 21 Feb 2019 11.31 EST

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cb7cd5bc9f22354bca46629ebd1fb05f84841b55/0_52_2790_1674/master/2790.jpg
The head of the Paris 2024 organising committee said breakdancing would make the Olympics ‘more urban’ and ‘more artistic’. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

Breakdancing pioneer Richard “Crazy Legs” Colon, who as leader of the US hip-hop group Rock Steady Crew is widely credited with turning the craze into a global phenomenon, has hailed its prospective inclusion in the Olympic Games.

Breakdancing has been confirmed as one of four sports, along with surfing, climbing and skateboarding, which will be put forward to the International Olympic Committee for inclusion in the Paris 2024 Games.

It follows the successful introduction of breakdancing at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires last year, for which Colon, a 53-year-old from The Bronx in New York, was invited to be a part of the judging panel.

Colon said: “This is about two worlds coming together. They each have their own history and I think that we can carefully do this in a manner that is respectful to the essence of both. The dance represents many people who come from struggle and have nothing, and now that has translated into an opportunity to see the world, to compete and, most importantly, to build bridges between cultures and break down stereotypes.”

Colon was a founding member of the Rock Steady Crew in 1977 and helped it develop from what was initially a New York sub-culture into a style which was recognised and copied around the world.

The group’s major UK hit, ‘(Hey You) The Rocksteady Crew’ reached number six in the charts in October 1983.

“I was brought in as one of the judges in Argentina and as you are watching the kids getting their medals, you kind of start to feel a little bit emotional,” added Colon.

Paco Boxy, director of the British Breaking League which organises competitions across the UK,added: “I think it’s fantastic news, not only for the young generation but also for the credibility of breakdancing to be classed as a sport.

“A lot of people will look at breakdancing as just spinning on your head or doing the worm, but the people that I know train like athletes. They go to the gym swimming, train every day. It will always be a dance first and foremost, but it has turned into a sport.

The selection of the four sports by the Paris organising committee brings bad news for squash and karate, the latter of which will make its Olympic debut in Tokyo next year.

A statement from World Karate Federation president Antonio Espinos read: “Our sport has grown exponentially over the last years and we still haven’t had the chance to prove our value as an Olympic sport since we will be making our debut as an Olympic discipline in Tokyo 2020.

“Over the last months we have worked relentlessly, together with the French Federation, to achieve our goal of being included in Paris 2024. We believed that we had met all the requirements and that we had the perfect conditions to be added to the sports programme. However, we have learned today that our dream will not be coming true.”

In a joint statement, the World Squash Federation and PSA World Tour said: “The proposed list of four sports only, of which three sports are already confirmed by the IOC on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic programme, leads to a belief that Paris 2024 and the IOC favoured sports already in the Olympic programme, leaving practically no opportunity for other sports.

“The unity that our sport enjoys globally is exceptional and is getting stronger by the day. WSF and PSA are supported by the entire squash community and, with our athletes at the forefront, have run a strong campaign that respected the timeline and the criteria set by Paris 2024 and the IOC.”

THREADS
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
Gung Fu & Breakdancing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?50673-Gung-Fu-amp-Breakdancing)
2024 Paris Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68366-2024-Paris-Olympics)

GeneChing

08-12-2019, 08:32 AM

Karate at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics: Everything you need to know (https://www.cnet.com/news/karate-at-the-2020-tokyo-olympics-everything-you-need-to-know/)
A new fan's guide to watching this ancient martial art.

BY DANIELLE KOSECKI
AUGUST 10, 2019 6:00 AM PDT

https://cnet3.cbsistatic.com/img/11hFZxV_PV-dEArGJQcyWeJjw0s=/756x567/2019/08/07/5feebd5e-5363-41fb-bc1b-da29adaa9595/karate.png
Karate's two modalities -- kata and kumite -- make their Olympic debut in 2020.
Canva

Karate, a system of unarmed combat that literally means "empty hand," is said to have developed during the 17th century in the Okinawa prefecture, a chain of islands off the southern coast of Japan. Despite being popularized worldwide as a sport after World War II, karate -- along with four other sports -- will be part of the Summer Olympics for the first time in 2020. Fittingly, it makes its Olympic debut in Japan, where the sport, which involves executing arm- and leg-based strikes, first originated.

It joins judo, taekwondo, and wrestling as the only Olympics-approved martial arts -- for 2020 anyway: Karate failed to make the cut for the Paris Olympics in 2024.

With that in mind, here's everything you need to know to enjoy karate during the Tokyo Olympics next summer.

Karate Events at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics

In Tokyo, Karate practitioners, or karatekas, will compete at Nippon Budokan, an indoor legacy venue built to host judo events at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Since then, Nippon Budokan, which is located in Kitanomaru Park in the center of Tokyo, has hosted various sports and music acts -- including the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Diana Ross -- but it's best known as the home of Japanese martial arts. It was the site of the first Karate World Championships in 1970 and to this day still hosts the national championships for judo, kendo, aikido and more.

At the 2020 Olympics, both the men and the women will compete in two karate events at Nippon Budokan: kata, a solo form discipline, and kumite, a sparring discipline.

https://cnet1.cbsistatic.com/img/q6gpR0YjwdPY1jJeTia7iwTiMq4=/1092x0/2019/08/07/2c21e5e6-a2a6-4d06-9742-19de8f1c181c/gettyimages-477075984.jpg
Karate Day 2: Baku 2015 - 1st European Games
Minh Dack of France competes in the Men's Karate Kata elimination round during the Baku 2015 European Games.
Michael Steele

In the Olympics, there will be one kata event -- and one gold medal -- each for men and women. During the competition, karatekas will perform a series of offensive and defensive movements, known as forms, against a virtual opponent. There are 102 kata approved by the World Karate Federation (WKF) that the athletes can choose from, such as Heian Shodan and Nijushiho.

Unlike in traditional competitions, which are scored using a flag system, Olympic judges will use a point system to evaluate the athletes' technical performance, taking things like techniques, timing and breathing into consideration, as well as their athletic performance -- i.e. strength, speed and balance.

According to this new scoring system, an individual's two highest and lowest scores will be thrown out, with the three remaining added together to represent their final score. After a ranking round, top performers will either progress to either the bronze medal or final bout.

Check out the full schedule of the 2020 Olympic Karate events. (https://tokyo2020.org/en/games/schedule/olympic/)

https://cnet2.cbsistatic.com/img/MG9vT7ppigZZnkq69593KQOxIzI=/1092x0/2019/08/07/9164e7a1-bac4-4a14-ade9-30a058a29da5/gettyimages-1056419312.jpg
Karate - Buenos Aires Youth Olympics: Day 12
Annika Saelid of Norway (red) and Negin Altooni of Iran (blue) compete in the Women's Kumite +59kg Semifinal during the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games 2018.
Marcelo Endelli / Getty Images

The WKF recognizes five weight classes in competition. But in the Olympics, men's and women's kumite will be consolidated into three weight classes. For men those classes are up to 67 kilograms, up to 75kg, and over 75kg, and for women it's and up to 55 kg, up to 61kg and over 61kg.

Within each weight class, pairs of karateka will compete against each other in an 8-by-8-meter area for up to three minutes. Points are awarded when an athlete lands a properly executed strike, kick or punch on various parts of their opponent's body, such as their head, neck, belly or back.

The first karateka to score eight points more than their competitor, or the karateka with the most points at the end of the match is the winner. In the event of a tie, judges determine the winner.

Competitors in each weight class will have to progress through three rounds -- an elimination round, the semi-final, and the final -- in pursuit of a gold medal.

How Karateka qualify for the Olympics
The WKF has more than 190 members but only 80 competitors will qualify the compete in Tokyo: 10 in each kumite weight class for both the men and the women and 10 men and 10 women in kata.

There are a few different ways to earn a spot on that list. The first is through qualification.

Thirty-two athletes (16 men and 16 women) will qualify based on their world ranking as of April 6, 2020. Twelve more men and 12 more women will qualify based on their results at a tournament in Paris, France from May 8 to 10, 2020. And 12 athletes will qualify at two continental events: the European Games which will be held June 14 to 30, 2019 in Minsk, Belarus and the Pan-American Games July 26 to Aug. 11, 2019 in Lima, Peru (details here).

The second pathway to the Olympics is open to citizens of the host country -- Japan is allowed to appoint eight athletes (four men and four women) to their Olympic team. If any of those athletes qualify via their world ranking or a tournament, those spots will be reallocated to other athletes.

The four final Olympic slots will be chosen by the Tripartite Commission, which is made up of the National Olympic Committees, the International Olympic Committee and the International Federations.

On Oct. 14, 2019 the International Olympic Committee will invite all eligible National Olympic Committees to submit their requests for Tripartite Commission Invitation Places by Jan. 15, 2020, according to the rules. The allocation of the last four spots will be confirmed after the end of the qualification period for karate, which has yet to be determined.

By June 2, 2020, the WKF will publish a list of the qualified athletes on the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 section of its website. The National Olympic Committees will then have two weeks to confirm if they wish to send those athletes to the Games.

THREADS
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

GeneChing

09-27-2019, 07:30 AM

Enter to win KungFuMagazine.com's contest for Karate Kid Autographed by Rosanne L. Kurstedt (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/sweepstakes-karate-kid-autographed.php)! Contest ends 5:00 p.m. PST on 9/27/2019.

http://www.kungfumagazine.com//admin/site_images/KungfuMagazine/images/ezine/9134_Karate-Kid-Sweepstake.jpg

THREADS
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
Martial Arts Children's books (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?56747-Martial-Arts-Children-s-books)

GeneChing

10-01-2019, 08:27 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vApvRSHtu-s

THREADS
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)

GeneChing

10-14-2019, 01:49 PM

See our WINNERS: Karate Kid Autographed by Rosanne L. Kurstedt (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71548-WINNERS-Karate-Kid-Autographed-by-Rosanne-L-Kurstedt) thread.

THREADS
Karate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10141-Karate)
Martial Arts Children's books (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?56747-Martial-Arts-Children-s-books)

GeneChing

12-27-2019, 11:46 AM

Everything You Need to Know About the 2020 Summer Olympics (https://time.com/5689792/2020-tokyo-olympics-when-where/)

https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/tokyo-olympics-rings.jpg?w=800&quality=85
A dog is pictured on the Olympic Rings displayed at the Japan Sport Olympic Square beside the new National Stadium, still under construction, in Tokyo on July 24, 2019. CHARLY TRIBALLEAU—AFP/Getty Images
BY RAISA BRUNER
DECEMBER 26, 2019

It will be here before we know it: the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, this time taking place in Japan’s capital of Tokyo.

It’s Tokyo’s second time hosting a Summer Olympics, 56 years after their first time in the spotlight. These Games will see the introduction of some exciting new sports to the lineup, too: skateboarding will make its Olympic debut, as well as karate, surfing and sport climbing.

There will be plenty of classics to watch as well, from the ever-popular swimming and gymnastics events to track and field and team sports. And while Olympic trials have yet to take place, we’ll most likely be seeing the return of superstars like the 2016 gymnastics standout Simone Biles, swimming record-setter Katie Ledecky and track star Sydney McLaughlin, who was just 16 when she competed in the Rio Olympics and has been on the rise ever since.

When will the 2020 Olympics start?

The 2020 Summer Olympics will begin on July 24, 2020 and run until Aug. 9, 2020, with the opening ceremony on July 24 and the closing ceremony on Aug. 9. (Some preliminary events will take place as early as July 22.) In between, audiences around the world will tune in to two weeks of nonstop sports. Most of the big swimming events will take place over the first week, while the track and field competitions ramp up in the second half.

Where are the 2020 Olympics being held?

https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/tokyo-olympics-new-stadium.jpg?w=800&quality=85
The New National Stadium, the main stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium (bottom right) are pictured on July 24, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan. Carl Court—Getty Images

For the second time in its history, Tokyo is hosting the summer Olympics; they first hosted back in 1964. (Japan has also been home to two Winter Olympics, at Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.) Tokyo is the first city in Asia to host an Olympics twice.

This time, Tokyo is looking to many of its preexisting facilities to stage the summer’s events. The city has been renovating stadiums and rebuilding where they can: of 43 venues, 25 were already standing, while eight are new and 10 more temporary, as the Los Angeles Times reports. The Nippon Budokkan is getting fixed up as the site of judo competition and karate, for example, while the Baji Koen Park will host equestrian events and the Yoyogi National Gymnasium will be the spot for handball. (Back in 1964, it was the center of the swimming and diving events.) But the big site — the Tokyo National Stadium — has been the focus of a major overhaul. Originally, the Stadium was to be rebuilt to the specifications of a design by the late architect Zaha Hadid. That plan was scrapped due to cost concerns. The ultimate design is one by a Japanese architect, Kengo Kuma, at about half the price.

The decision on a host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics was determined back in 2013 in Argentina. The three final contenders during the bid process were Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo; Tokyo ended up ahead with 60 votes to 36 once the field had been narrowed down to Istanbul or Tokyo. Hosting the Olympics is a complex proposition for any city: while it offers potential economic upsides, thanks to increased construction, investment and tourism, many cities also struggle to make later use of the expansive facilities and housing that the Games require.

In 1964, Tokyo was the first Asian city to host the games. They had initially been scheduled as host for 1940, but the geopolitics of the era necessitated a shift. (The 1940 games were ultimately cancelled entirely.) The 1964 Games were actually held in October, to account for Japan’s midsummer heat and September typhoon season.

What sports are in the Summer Olympics?

The 2020 Summer Olympics will award medals across 339 events, representing 33 different sports. Five are new sports entirely (baseball/softball, skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing and karate), while others — like basketball — see the inclusion of new events within the discipline. Nothing has been dropped since 2016, which also saw the return of golf and rugby.
.
Here is the full list of sports, and the number of events within each sport: aquatics (49), archery (5), athletics (48), badminton (5), baseball/softball (2), basketball (4), boxing (13), canoeing (16), cycling (22), equestrian (6), fencing (12), field hockey (2), football (2), golf (2), gymnastics (18), handball (2), judo (15), karate (8), pentathlon (2), rowing (14), rugby (2), sailing (10), shooting (15), skateboarding (4), sport climbing (2), surfing (2), table tennis (5), taekwondo (8), tennis (5), triathlon (3), volleyball (4), weightlifting (14) and wrestling (18).

Which U.S. athletes will likely be competing?

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Oct. 1 2019, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Stuttgart: Gymnastics: World Championship, podium training in the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle. picture alliance—dpa/picture alliance via Getty I

Simone Biles. Katie Ledecky. Sydney McLaughlin. Serena Williams. There’s still a lot up in the air about who will end up competing at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Some Olympic trials don’t take place until late in 2020; for track and field and swimming, for instance, trials to determine who will end up as an Olympian aren’t until June 2020, just a month before the Olympics themselves.

Other sports, like many of the team events and the marathon, choose their qualified athletes based on performance in international competitions over the course of 2019 and early 2020. NBC’s Olympics-dedicated Twitter account is a good place to keep track of preliminary and qualifying events.

As for individual athletes set to take the Olympic stage? Michael Phelps, the world’s winning-est Olympian and one of the most recognizable Summer Olympics athletes, probably won’t be back; recent public appearances suggest the dad of three is content letting his record speak for itself after representing the U.S. in four consecutive Olympics. But Simone Manuel, who made waves with her gold-medal tie in 2016, is a possible 2020 Olympian, and Nathan Adrian, who is currently battling testicular cancer, might be back for round three. And then there’s Ledecky, still distance swimming’s dominant force.

On the track and field side, recognizable names like Justin Gatlin may be in contention for a spot in the competition; the former 100m-medalist from 2004 is posting top times lately. Sydney McLaughlin was the U.S.’s youngest member of the track team in 2016, and has 2020 potential. And sprinter Noah Lyles has been considered an heir to the Usain Bolt throne. Caster Semenya, meanwhile, has been a dominant force in the field — but it remains to be seen whether the 800m champion will be allowed to compete. Semenya already has two gold medals under her belt, but recently she has been battling new regulations set down by the International Association of Athletics Federations that classify her as ineligible to run in women’s races based on the increased level of testosterone she genetically possesses.
continued next post

GeneChing

12-27-2019, 11:48 AM

#TokyoOlympics
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@NBCOlympics
Say hello to your World 200m Champion, @LylesNoah! 💪#WorldAthleticsChamps

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As far as gymnastics goes, Simone Biles has been breaking records at recent national and international gymnastics competitions, suggesting that she’s ready to rock for 2020. Basketball, always a Team U.S.A. highlight, might see James Harden take the court in Tokyo. And a cast of familiar soccer stars — Rose LaVelle, Megan Rapinoe and Julie Ertz — may very well have a world stage moment once more since the U.S. Women’s National Team’s 2019 World Cup victory. While USWNT star Alex Morgan is expecting her first child, due just months before the Olympics, the forward has said she hopes to still compete in Tokyo after giving birth.

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Brazilian skateboarder Rayssa Leal competes in the Street League Skateboarding world championship women's final in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on September 22, 2019. NELSON ALMEIDA—AFP/Getty Images

The biggest change to the Olympics for 2020 is the addition of the five new sports and the return of baseball (absent in 2016), plus a few new events, like the three-on-three basketball competition.

One change sure to receive a lot of attention are the adjusted gymnastics team rules: instead of fielding a team of five athletes, each country will be whittled down to four all-around contestants, with two more teammates added to compete only in individual events.

Are there any big controversies ahead of the Olympics?

Concerns about costs
Olympics detractors point to rising costs as a serious concern; back in 2013, Tokyo suggested a budget of around $7 billion. That ballooned at one point to an estimated $30 billion, with organizers winnowing it down to nearer $25 billion for now. (For reference, Russia ended up spending $51 billion on the Sochi games — the highest known expenditure for an Olympics. That said, future summer games are looking at budgets below $10 billion, thanks to new regulations.)

Weather questions
Aside from the costs, there are some concerns about weather: Tokyo has seen increasingly high summer temperatures in the past few years, which means outdoor events like the marathon could be impacted. On the one-year-to-go mark this summer, the city also experienced a torrential downpour. (In 1964, the Tokyo Olympics were actually held in October to avoid these climate issues.)

USA Gymnastics
USA Gymnastics has been roiled by allegations of sexual assault against the team’s former doctor Larry Nassar in the past few years, with star gymnasts including Aly Raisman and Simone Biles speaking out about abuse and urging their governing body to take steps towards change.

Nassar pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual assault of a minor and was sentenced in 2018 to up to 175 years in Michigan state prison, but Raisman and others have remained vocal in her criticisms of the organizations for which he worked.

Questions about Russia
Russia will most likely not compete as a nation at the 2020 Olympics, after the World Anti-Doping Agency recommended in November that the country receive a four-year ban from international competition for not cooperating with doping investigations. In January, WADA shared their suspicions that Russia had tampered with its athletes’ data before presenting it for inspection to the agency. Russia has had a fraught history with doping allegations; it has been stripped of 43 Olympic medals over the years.

Although Russia said in December that it would appeal the WADA decision, if the potential ban is upheld, Russian athletes who have not been found guilty of doping would still be allowed to compete individually. The setup would be reminiscent of the 2018 Olympics, when a select number of Russian athletes were cleared to compete at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics as OAR — the neutral “Olympic Athletes Russian” delegation.

Doping
Russia isn’t the only country facing concerns about doping among its athletes. The use of substances to enhance athletic performance has long been a fixture in modern competition, and recently superstars like Lance Armstrong have had their legacies reconsidered in light of new information about doping.

Swimming has been in focus in particular lately: in October, U.S. swimmer and prior Olympic medalist Conor Dwyer announced his retirement following a 20-month ban due to the discovery of his testosterone use. Australia’s Shayna Jack failed a drug test in July, although she contends she ingested the banned substance unknowingly.

China’s Sun Yang has been a flashpoint of the doping controversy for years: he first tested positive for banned substances in 2014, and is under investigation for smashing a vial of his blood to avoid testing in 2016. At this summer’s world championships, where he dominated in his events, several fellow competitors voiced their objections to his continued appearance in the sport.

Bribery allegations
The longtime head of Japan’s Olympic Committee, Tsunekazu Takeda, stepped down this summer after a French investigation into the choice of Tokyo as the host city for 2020 uncovered potential corruption and the use of bribes in securing votes back in 2013. Takeda has maintained his innocence, but recused himself from his Olympic roles in the face of the controversy.

Water temperature and clarity
Like in Rio in 2016, there are some concerns about the quality of the water in Tokyo Bay, which will be home to sailing events and open-water distance swimming events. In 2017, trace amounts of E. coli bacteria — 20 times the safe standard — were found in the Bay, leading to an increased focus on decontamination. And at a test event in summer 2019, the water temperature itself led athletes to admit to being overheated during their long-distance swims.

In October, the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced that surveys of water quality and temperature in the Odaiba Marine Park showed that their attempts to improve water quality were “effective,” by using a series of underwater screens that reduced the presence of coliforms. Surveys of water temperature also suggested the temperatures on the same summer dates in 2019 were within the target.

https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/tokyo-bay-swimming.jpg?w=800&quality=85
Swimmers dive into the sea at the start of the men's Marathon Swimming 5km competition, as a test event for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Odaiba Marine Park in Tokyo on August 11, 2019. KAZUHIRO NOGI—AFP/Getty Images

Labor concerns
Labor organizations, including the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, have reported dangerous and problematic working conditions for construction workers contracted to build and refurbish Tokyo’s many venues, citing a “culture of fear” among workers, plus low pay and overwork, that may have led to multiple deaths so far. For its part, the IOC has said it is working closely with the U.N. agency the International Labour Organization, as the Japanese media has reported, and will be addressing the concerns “with relevant Japanese authorities.” That was in July.

How can I watch the 2020 Olympics?
As in the past, NBC will be home to 2020 Summer Olympics coverage. They will broadcast on TV and also have a home for all Olympics viewing on their Olympic Channel website, with events available to livestream. For cord-cutters, NBC apps for streaming and mobile will provide access on TVs and smart devices — but you will have to provide a cable login or buy a subscription in order to access the full coverage.

Where will the 2024 Summer Olympics be held?
The 2024 Summer Olympics will be held in Paris. And all the way out in 2028, Los Angeles will play host.

WRITE TO RAISA BRUNER AT RAISA.BRUNER@TIME.COM.

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GeneChing

02-24-2020, 09:01 AM

No car, no job, no home: What a female karate master gave up to go for 2020 Olympics gold (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/21/what-a-female-karate-kid-gave-up-to-go-for-2020-tokyo-olympics-gold.html?__source=sharebar%7Cfacebook&par=sharebar&fbclid=IwAR2p2jdVs9A17nCcRXLQ-Ri8M4MgD_GnqTPHrW8_pzoG-6qG8_tDT28Ebaw)
PUBLISHED FRI, FEB 21 20209:56 AM ESTUPDATED SAT, FEB 22 20205:07 PM EST
Candice Goldman
Jane Wells
@JANEWELLS
KEY POINTS
Like many American athletes, Sakura Kokumai has given up everything to train for the 2020 Olympics in a sport that doesn’t attract many sponsors or much money.
She quit her job to focus on training, lives with a host family, and sometimes sleeps on a gym floor.
Kokumai has been practicing karate since the age of seven and this may be her only shot at an Olympic medal: Karate will not be in the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.

Money is this U.S. Olympic hopeful’s biggest hurdle

Her hands move in a blur. Then they stop, frozen like stone.

Sakura Kokumai is 27 years old and could be America’s best hope for a medal in karate at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

She has a menacing presence in the dojo, even though she is not quite five feet tall. Somehow, when she puts on her “gi,” or uniform, Kokumai seems to grow.

“Whenever I wear a gi, I feel very strong. I feel confident, and I feel more like myself,” she says.

There are two types of karate debuting at the Tokyo Games. One is sparring, called kumite. The other is a series of precise movements done individually, called kata. “I always explain it as like figure skating without music,” Kokumai says.

She is No. 1 in the U.S. in women’s kata, and she’s top five in the world, winning gold at the Pan American Games last fall and silver at the Karate Premier League Tournament in Dubai last week.

She accomplished all of this without a coach.

Kokumai is living for free with a host family in California. She has no car. Her wardrobe consists mostly of Team USA clothing, and when asked how much money she has in the bank, she hesitates. “A little,” she finally admits with a laugh.

Like thousands of Americans, Sakura Kokumai has given up everything to train for the Olympics in a sport that doesn’t attract many sponsors or much money. But unlike many of those other athletes, she never thought the Olympics could be in her future.

“A lot of swimmers, wrestlers, they will grow up dreaming about the Olympics because they see athletes competing at the Games before,” she says. “For us karate athletes, it was like a different universe.”

Suddenly when the International Olympic Committee decided in 2016 to add karate to the Tokyo games, Kokumai had decisions to make. “Where do I go? Where do I start? What do I do?”

Training since seven

Kokumai began taking karate lessons at the age of 7 in Hawaii. “My mom kind of threw me into a YMCA class,” she says. She enjoyed the sport and the people. “To me, karate was more of an escape...just something peaceful about it. It was calming.”

Kata in particular attracted her. “It’s less than three minutes, but I felt like I was expressing myself through the kata, so I think I fell in love with the art of it.”

Kokumai says each kata routine is a fixed set of movements that’s been “passed down for years.” What an individual athlete can change “is the rhythm, the timing.”

https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106401518-1582235853741widepose.jpg?v=1582246963&w=740&h=416
Sakura Kokumai, 2007 Panamerican Junior Championship, Quito, Ecuador
Sakura Kokumai

Kokumai says her small stature allows her “to show more speed” than someone who is taller. “I think strength is my power.”

She became good enough to start competing overseas as a teenager. “It’s been nonstop since then.”

Kokumai eventually went to college in Japan, earning an undergraduate degree in linguistics and education, followed by a master’s in international relations, and she was working in Tokyo when word came down that karate was going to be in the 2020 Olympics. Upon hearing the news, “I didn’t know what to do to train,” Kokumai says. “I didn’t know what it took to get there, because there was no example. It’s the first time, and there was no past karate Olympian.”

Kokumai tried to continue working and training, but found herself falling asleep doing stretches. She wasn’t eating right. “I soon realized that juggling work and karate was impossible. So I decided to quit my job.”

That’s when she moved to California. She trains in the garage at the home where she stays, and she walks to the local gym. “I did find a strength conditioning coach, but he’s in San Diego.”

Once in a while, Kokumai spends around $50 to take an Amtrak train to San Diego, where her conditioning coach lets her sometimes sleep over in the gym.

Could be first and last shot at Olympic gold
Even though Sakura Kokumai has spent much of her life traveling back and forth to Japan, there was never any question in her mind which country to compete for. “I started karate in Hawaii, I looked up to athletes who have represented the U.S.,” she says. “I always identified myself as an American.”

Money, however, is increasingly on her mind. “Because I’m my own coach, I never really had the time to handle the other things, which has been a struggle.”

She recently picked up Panasonic as a sponsor, though she will not reveal what kind of financial help, if any, comes with that. She receives a monthly stipend from Team USA, and the USA Karate Federation reimburses her travel expenses to international tournaments crucial to earning enough qualifying points for the Olympics.

https://media.giphy.com/media/gK5ZZD9MoC49K4qsEW/giphy.gif
via GIPHY

There are no guarantees Kokumai will earn one of the 10 spots for female kata in Tokyo, though she is currently among the world’s best. Only Japan is guaranteed one spot — the remaining nine will be based on an individual athlete’s global ranking.

This could be Kokumai’s only shot at an Olympic medal. Karate will not be in the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. What if all this work and sacrifice is for nothing? Even if she does win gold, is there any financial reward for a kata karate athlete?

“My focus right now is to qualify, and then my thought was, OK, once I get there, then I’ll figure it out,” she laughs.

Maybe after she qualifies, Sakura Kokumai will be able to afford a coach. Or maybe not.

“I just practice and do what I know, and it’s gotten me where I am today,” she says, “so I guess I’m doing all right.”

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of spots Japan is guaranteed in female kata at the 2020 Summer Olympics.

THREADS
2020 Tokyo Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)
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GeneChing

04-08-2021, 10:26 PM

There's a vid behind the link

Woman Training for Olympics Becomes Target of Anti-Asian Rant at Orange County Park (https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/sakura-kokumai-orange-county-racist-video-olympics-karate/2569313/?fbclid=IwAR22b1SQ1gVA96AHvujp0ShJk9V2M_QSk7ziwY9e tfVPyh7myFm27-j3vac)
Sakura Kokumai, 28, is the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate, and is training for the summer games in Tokyo.
By Angie Crouch • Published 3 hours ago • Updated 3 hours ago

An Olympic hopeful from SoCal — the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate — posted a video of the man shouting at her as she trained in a park. Angie Crouch reports April 8, 2021.

An Asian American woman training for the Olympics' karate competition says she was threatened by a man yelling racial slurs at an Orange County Park, and is sharing the recorded video of the incident in order to spread awareness about growing harassment against Asian Americans.

Sakura Kokumai, 28, is the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate, and is training for the summer games in Tokyo.

She said she’s still in shock over what happened at Grijalva Park in the city of Orange last week.

“Nobody likes to be yelled at by a complete stranger," she said.

In a video she shared on Instagram, you can see a stranger berating her and threatening her as she worked out.

"Go home, stupid," can be heard. “I’ll (bleep) you up - I’ll (bleep) your husband up or boyfriend or whoever you’re talking to on the phone."

She responds with, "I haven’t done anything.”

"When somebody is just yelling at you that aggressively you do get your guard up a little bit - you do get worried," Kokumai said.

Kokumai is Japanese American, but she says the man yelled something about her being Chinese as he drove away.

"The only two words I picked up were 'Chinese' and 'sashimi' which have no connection at all," she said.

In an online summit with other Olympic athletes, U.S. gymnast Yul Moldauer revealed he too has been the victim of racial harassment.

“Last month I was driving and a lady cut me off. She yelled at me, 'go back to China.' For me my job is to represent this country so I take a lot of pride into it," Moldauer said.

The man in the Instagram video has not been identified and Kokumai wasn’t hurt.

She says while it’s heartbreaking to see a rise in attacks on Asian Americans, she hopes sharing her story will bring awareness.

“We all belong here and we don’t have to be afraid when we go out. But I encourage people to look out for one another," she said.

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2020-Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

GeneChing

04-19-2021, 07:25 PM

More on Sakura Kokumai (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics&p=1320699#post1320699)

Police Arrest Man Accused of Berating Team USA Karate Athlete Training at Park for Olympics (https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/arrest-anti-asian-crime-orange-county-park-olympian-sakura-kokumai/2576706/?fbclid=IwAR0tHJpzYE6xhQGIIcj988vgMRqIcjtyyA7ERI-937Z3drbdySpeQkh4C8Q)
Sakura Kokumai, who qualified for this summer’s Olympics in karate, was training at an Orange County park when a stranger began yelling at her and making threats.
By Staff Reports • Published April 19, 2021 • Updated 6 hours ago

An Olympic hopeful from SoCal — the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate — posted a video of the man shouting at her as she trained in a park. Angie Crouch reports April 8, 2021.

A man accused of assaulting a Southern California Asian couple and threatening a U.S. Olympian who was training at an Orange County park has been arrested.

Michael Vivona, 25, of Corona was arrested Sunday on suspicion of elder abuse and committing a hate crime in connection with an assault on a Korean American couple. He also was arrested in the April 1 encounter with 28-year-old Sakura Kokumai, who qualified for this summer’s Olympics in karate.

Details about the arrest were not immediately available. It was not immediately clear whether the suspect has an attorney.

Kokumai, a seven-time national champion, shared video of the encounter with a man who yelled at her in Grijalva Park in the city of Orange. In video shared on Instagram, the man can be seen berating her as she works out at the public park.

It makes me emotional just to think about it because at the time I did feel that I was alone.

Sakura Kokumai
“Go home stupid,” the man can be heard saying. “I’ll f— you up. I’ll f— your husband up or boyfriend or whoever you’re talking to on the phone.”

Kokumai is Japanese American, but she said the man yelled something about her being Chinese as he drove away.

“The only two words I picked up were ‘Chinese’ and ’sashimi,’ which have no connection at all,” Kokumai told NBCLA. “Nobody likes to be yelled at by a complete stranger.”

Kokumai was at the park to go for a jog as she prepares to represent the United States in front of the world at the Olympics in Tokyo.

Kokumai said she shared the video to spread awareness about harassment against Asian Americans.

“I want everybody to know, especially in the AAPI community, that you’re not alone,” Kokumai told NBC News. “I think it’s really important to have compassion, share love and look out for one another.

“It makes me emotional just to think about it because at the time I did feel that I was alone."

In the aftermath, Kokumai said she received heartwarming messages of support.

“They made me feel that I do belong here,” Kokumai said.

Details about the other crime for which the suspect was arrested were not immediately available.

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2020-Tokyo-Olympics (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-2020-Tokyo-Olympics)

highlypotion

04-22-2021, 11:45 PM

Justice will always prevail.

PalmStriker

04-23-2021, 11:30 AM

riiiiiight, chill everyone? :D
I am just interested in how other kung fu students feel about karate. Uhmm, ok, so how is the Okinawan Karate (Shuri Te+Naha Te) different from the stuff we see out there now? is Shuri Te+Naha Te a rare art to find?

~K~
"maybe not in combat..... but think of the chicks man, the chicks!"

To answer your twenty year old question, I am posting a vid that explains everything : :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65mZA-ICJXQ

GeneChing

04-30-2021, 08:41 AM

Enter to win Suparinpei: The Highest Kata of Goju-Ryu Karate by Giles Hopkins (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/suparinpei.php).
Contest ends 5/13/2021

http://www.kungfumagazine.com//admin/site_images/KungfuMagazine/images/ezine/4899_Suparinpei-Sweepstakes_Large.jpg

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GeneChing

05-17-2021, 10:52 AM

See WINNERS-Suparinpei-The-Highest-Kata-of-Goju-Ryu-Karate-by-Giles-Hopkins (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72068-WINNERS-Suparinpei-The-Highest-Kata-of-Goju-Ryu-Karate-by-Giles-Hopkins)

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GeneChing

05-25-2021, 06:09 PM

I hope you get a chance to compete.

SAKURA KOKUMAI OFFICIALLY CONFIRMED AS FIRST U.S. KARATE OLYMPIAN (https://www.teamusa.org/News/2021/May/25/Sakura-Kokumai-Officially-Confirmed-As-First-US-Karate-Olympian)
By Todd Kortemeier | May 25, 2021, 3:36 p.m. (ET)

https://www.teamusa.org/-/media/TeamUSA/Karate/Kokumai_Sakura/Kokumai_Sakura_112021_1440x810_4.png
Sakura Kokumai poses for a portrait during the Team USA Tokyo 2020 Olympic shoot on Nov. 22, 2019 in West Hollywood, Calif.

Sakura Kokumai first saw her name appear alongside the word “Olympian” back in March 2020. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened, the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 were postponed, the karate Olympic qualifying system was revised and athletes had to wait until Tuesday to have their Olympic fates confirmed.

Kokumai found herself in the same spot — among the first 40 karate athletes officially qualified for the Games. Kokumai ranks as the fourth kata athlete in the world, securing her place. She is the only one among the 40 from Team USA.

It’s been a long wait for both Kokumai and the sport of karate, as both will be making their Olympic debuts in Tokyo. The discipline of kata that Kokumai practices is based on progressing through a series of movements. Athletes receive scores from judges on their technical execution.

Kokumai, 28, first took up the sport at the age of 7 in her native Hawaii. Growing up, she lived in both Hawaii and Japan, where her parents are originally from. Kokumai now lives in San Diego.

Kokumai committed to the kata discipline at the age of 16, and by 2012 won her first world championships medal. A seven-time national champion at the senior level, Kokumai has been a member of the national team since 2007. She owns six senior Pan American championships and in 2019 captured the gold medal in individual kata at the Pan American Games. She’ll hope to bring home a medal of a similar color from Tokyo.

“Karate has been a part of my life for a long time now,” she told TeamUSA.org in September. “It may be new to the Olympics, but there are so many karate practitioners around the world, and I think that people who practice karate have a relationship with the sport that’s very personal. I’m hoping the Olympics will allow people to see what we do and why we do what we do.”

Todd Kortemeier
Todd Kortemeier is a sportswriter, editor and children’s book author from Minneapolis. He is a contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.

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GeneChing

06-08-2021, 08:52 AM

Pop-Up “King of Karate” Exhibit to Open at Graceland (https://www.memphisflyer.com/pop-up-king-of-karate-exhibit-to-open-at-graceland)
https://d33byq9npfy6u9.cloudfront.net/4/2021/06/04113510/graceland.jpg
Graceland Mansion (photo by Shara Clark)

Flyer Staff
11:43 a.m. Jun. 4, 2021
Elvis Presley is not most famous for his love of karate, but his interest in the martial art is indeed part of his legend. It informed his fashion, his stage moves, and more. Now, to celebrate the 39th opening of Graceland to tours on June 7, 1982, Elvis Presley’s Graceland will open a new pop-up exhibit, dedicated to the King’s experience with karate, inside the Graceland Archives Experience in Elvis Presley’s Memphis. The new exhibit will open on Monday, June 7th.

Presley began his study of karate while he was in the Army, stationed in Germany. The King developed a passion for karate, and he continued to study the form when he returned to Memphis, earning his first-degree black belt under Hank Slemansky.

Perhaps most famously, Presley studied in a Memphis dojo under Master Kang Rhee, who eventually bestowed seventh- and eighth-degree black belts on Presley.

Included in the pop-up exhibit’s collection will be Presley’s personal karate gis, his seventh- and eighth-degree black belt certificates, and the original handwritten script for his 1974 karate documentary, New Gladiators.

The exhibit will open at Elvis Presley’s Graceland on Monday, June 7th.

https://altnuxt-wp-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/sites/4/2021/06/04124528/Screen-Shot-2021-06-04-at-12.44.34-PM-1536x1223.png
Photo courtesy Elvis Presley’s Graceland

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GeneChing

06-30-2021, 01:12 PM

https://www.teamusa.org/-/media/USA_Karate/Logos/Kicker-Logo/USA-Karate-Sport-Logo-300x375.jpg

USA KARATE ANNOUNCES DELEGATION FOR OLYMPIC GAMES TOKYO 2020 (https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Karate/Features/2021/June/29/USA-Karate-Announces-Delegation-for-Olympic-Games-Tokyo-2020)
June 29, 2021, 4:02 p.m. (ET)

USA Karate announced today the full U.S. delegation for the upcoming Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

Karate is one of five sports added to the Olympic program and making its debut this summer at the Games. The sport will feature two separate events: kata, which is a solo form of karate, and kumite which focuses more on sparring.

Representing Team USA’s first ever Olympic Karate team will be Sakura Kokumai (Los Angeles, CA), Ariel Torres (Miami, FL), and Brian Irr (Plano, TX). Athlete qualification pending United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee approval.

Sakura Kokumai qualified in the first phase of qualification, securing her Olympic spot by ranking top four in the world in the female kata division. Kokumai selected Brian Mertel to be her on-site coach at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Ariel Torres punched his ticket to Tokyo when he won gold at the World Karate Federation Olympic Qualification Tournament in Paris; confirming his status as a favorite in the male kata division. Javier Mantilla was chosen as Torres’ coach for his Olympic debut.

Brian Irr is the third member of the USA Karate Olympic team, qualifying as the continental representation from the Pan-American Karate Federation’s continental games. He will be competing in the +75 male kumite category. Irr invited coach Brody Burns to sit in his chair.

The USA Karate team will be guided by Team Leader, Elizabeth Sottile; and CEO/NGB Representative Phil Hampel during these Olympic Games.

Other USA Karate delegation members include Tom Scott, athlete training partner; Jose Fraguas, Press Officer; Nicole Clinton, Athletic Trainer; Jessica Bartley, Sport Psychologist; Maile Chinen, Venue Coordinator; and Fariba Madani, Referee.

Karate competition will take place at the Nippon Budokan, the iconic Japanese martial arts venue, on August 5-7, 2021. USA karate athletes will be competing each day of competition: Kokumai on August 5, Torres on August 6, and Irr on the 7th.

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GeneChing

07-01-2021, 01:30 PM

https://storage.googleapis.com/media.mwcradio.com/mimesis/2021-06/30/2021-06-30T011052Z_1_LYNXNPEH5T01J_RTROPTP_3_OLYMPICS-2020-KARATE.JPG
Karate-After long battle, karate gets long-awaited chance on biggest stage (https://whbl.com/2021/06/29/karate-after-long-battle-karate-gets-long-awaited-chance-on-biggest-stage/)
By Syndicated Content
Jun 29, 2021 | 8:10 PM
By Chang-Ran Kim

TOKYO (Reuters) – Karate has fought a long, hard battle to earn its place as an Olympic sport.

Despite its 100 million practitioners worldwide, a solid place in popular culture and a rich history that some say can be traced back to the 15th century, the Japanese martial art’s bid to join the Olympics had been rejected three times, including, initially, for Tokyo 2020.

It was only thanks to the provision under the “Olympic Agenda 2020” reform blueprint adopted in 2014 that Games hosts were allowed to propose a number of sports and karate was granted a second shot.

Lobbied by then-chief cabinet secretary and current prime minister Yoshihide Suga, karate officially won its place two years later to join fellow Asian martial arts judo and taekwondo on the big stage in Tokyo.

Unfortunately for Japan’s karate federation, however, entering the Olympic sphere also exposed the rampant bullying of one of its leading athletes by a senior federation member in a scandal that sent shockwaves through the local karate world.

With just four months to go until karate’s debut at the Games, Japan Karatedo Federation (JKF) technical director Masao Kagawa was forced to resign when karateka Ayumi Uekusa blew the whistle – through the Olympics hot-line – on his abuses and unsanctioned use of a bamboo stick during training that caused her a serious eye injury.

The federation quickly dismissed Kagawa as head of the sport’s “Player Strengthening Committee” and replaced him with a popular former karate champion, Rika Usami, known as “the queen of kata”.

With the scandal behind it, karate will be looking to Tokyo 2020 to demonstrate why it deserves to be a core Olympic sport.

Karate has been ruled out for Paris 2024, though it will have a place at the postponed Youth Olympics in Dakar 2026 following a debut at the 2018 youth event in Buenos Aires.

In the “kata” category, in which athletes demonstrate offensive and defensive techniques against a virtual opponent, Japan’s Ryo Kiyuna is a favourite to win what would be the first gold medal for his native Okinawa prefecture, the birthplace of karate.

For female kata, a close contest is expected between Spanish world champion Sandra Sanchez and Japan’s Kiyou Shimizu after their memorable tie-breaker match at the sport’s top event in 2019.

The “kumite” sparring category will involve 60 athletes in three weight categories each for men and women, with France’s Steve Dacosta, Azerbaijan’s Rafael Aghayev, China’s Xiaoyan Yin and Turkey’s Serap Ozcelik Arapoglu among those to watch.

(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim, editing by Ed Osmond)

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GeneChing

07-13-2021, 09:45 AM

fencing (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/fencing)
archery (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/archery)
boxing (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/boxing)
wrestling (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/wrestling)
judo (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/judo)
taekwondo (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/taekwondo)
karate (https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/karate)

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GeneChing

07-21-2021, 06:12 AM

What to know about karate at the Tokyo Olympics (https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/07/18/karate-olympics-2021/)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/DA3BHFHFGII6XCGFJ7LDQLCHZM.jpg&w=1440&impolicy=high_res
France's Alexandra Feracci is among the competitors in the Olympic karate competition. (Pascal Pochard-Casabianca/AFP/Getty Images)
By
Matt Bonesteel
July 18, 2021|Updated July 19, 2021 at 10:12 a.m. EDT

Karate will be an Olympic sport for the first time in Tokyo this year. It might be the last: Japanese Olympic organizers added it to the list of sports at this year’s Games under new IOC guidelines that allow organizing committees of each Olympics to include provisional new events for the Games they host. Karate will not be a competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and its status for Los Angeles in 2028 has yet to be determined.

So this might be your last chance to see the world’s top karatekas practice their craft on the world’s biggest athletic stage. Here’s what you need to know about karate at the Tokyo Olympics.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How does the Olympic kata competition work?
How does the Olympic kumite competition work?
Where will the Olympic karate competitions take place?
What is the schedule of Olympic karate events?
Who are the top American hopefuls in Olympic karate?
Who are the top international hopefuls in Olympic karate?
How does the Olympic kata competition work?
Athletes will compete in two karate competitions in Tokyo: kata and kumite.

In kata, athletes demonstrate offensive and defensive moves against a virtual opponent. In each demonstration, athletes must choose from one of 102 kata movements that are recognized by the World Karate Federation, and they are not allowed to perform the same kata twice in one tournament.

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Points are awarded by a panel of seven judges for stance, technique, transitional movement, timing, correct breathing, focus and conformance (70 percent of the score) and strength, speed and balance (30 percent of the score). The two highest and two lowest scores garnered by each performance are thrown out, and the remaining three scores are added up.

All athletes compete in the same weight class in kata, so only one set of medals will be awarded in men’s and women’s kata.

How does the Olympic kumite competition work?
In kumite, two athletes square off on an 8x8-meter mat. Matches end either after three minutes or when one of the competitors has amassed eight more points than their opponent, whichever comes first. Points are awarded for straight punches delivered to the body or face (one point), middle kicks delivered to the body (two points) and high kicks delivered to the head or punches delivered on an opponent who has been taken to the ground via sweep or takedown (three points).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6r8JwEFowY

If three minutes elapse, the competitor with the most points wins. In the event of a tie, whoever scored the first point is declared the winner. Scoreless draws are broken by a panel of five judges.

Medals will be awarded to different weight classes in kumite: under 67, under 75 and over 75 kilograms for men; and under 55, under 61 and over 61 kilograms for women.

Where will the Olympic karate competitions take place?
The karate events will be held at the Nippon Budokan, which was originally built to host the judo competition at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and will again host judo this year. Yes, it’s the same arena where Cheap Trick’s 1978 live-album colossus “Cheap Trick at Budokan” was recorded.

What is the schedule of Olympic karate events?
Aug. 4-5

Women’s kata, women’s kumite (under 55 kg), men’s kumite (under 67 kg)

Aug. 5-6

Men’s kata, women’s kumite (under 61 kg), men’s kumite (under 75 kg)

Aug. 6-7

Women’s kumite (over 61 kg), men’s kumite (over 75 kg)

Who are the top American hopefuls in Olympic karate?
Sakura Kokumai, a native of Hawaii, is the only American woman competing in karate and is ranked seventh in the World Karate Federation’s world kata rankings. Her parents both hail from Japan, and she has family still in the country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/F7KVS6FWSBE3XKS5QF6RK6SGSY.jpg&w=916
Sakura Kokumai competes in Paris in 2020. (Baptiste Fernandez/Icon Sport via Getty Images)
Thomas Scott (ranked sixth globally in under-75-kg kumite) and Ariel Torres Gutierrez (10th in men’s kata) are Team USA’s top chances to medal in men’s karate. Brian Irr rounds out the American karate roster in over-75-kg kumite.

Who are the top international hopefuls in Olympic karate?
The top men’s and women’s kata karatekas per the WKF rankings — Damián Quintero and Sandra Sánchez — both hail from Spain. Japan has both No. 2s (Ryo Kiyuna and Kiyou Shimizu).

In kumite, men’s medal contenders include 2018 world champion Steve Da Costa of France and Italy’s Angelo Crescenzo in the under-67-kg competition. Five-time world champion Rafael Aghayev of Azerbaijan (under 75 kg) and Turkey’s Ugur Aktas (over 75 kg) should also contend for spots on the podium. Croatia‘s Ivan Kvesic (over 75 kg) is a recent gold medalist at the world championships and European championships.

On the women’s side, Ukraine’s Anzhelika Terliuga (under 55 kg) tops the world rankings in her weight class. Serbia’s Jovana Prekovic (under 61 kg) and Azerbaijan’s Irina Zaretska (over 61 kg), both 2018 world champions, will also compete in Tokyo. China’s Yin Xiaoyan leads the world rankings in the under-61-kg weight class and finished second to Prekovic in 2018.

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GeneChing

07-27-2021, 07:54 AM

Utah grandma, 83, receives karate black belt from Chuck Norris (https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/44380022/utah-grandma-83-receives-karate-black-belt-from-chuck-norris)
Monday, July 26th 2021, 3:36 PM EDT
By Ashley Imlay

SALT LAKE CITY (KSL) -- Carole Taylor may be 83, but she now has a fifth-degree black belt in karate — an honor she received from Chuck Norris himself.

The Utah woman's passion for martial arts began 15 years ago at the age of 68, when she started taking her 11-year-old granddaughter to lessons.

"I thought: 'Wow, this is mental and physical. This would be a good thing for someone my age to do. ... So I asked the teacher if it would be all right if I joined the class, and so that's why I did it," she recalled.

Taylor learned karate alongside her granddaughter.

"We both got our first-degree black belts at about the same time," she said.

On Saturday, that granddaughter was there to watch Taylor show off her skills in front of dozens at Chuck Norris' annual United Fighting Arts Federation International Training Convention. For her demonstration, Taylor chose to show forms of karate including traditional hand techniques, stances, footwork, targeting, focusing and power.

She performed to the Beach Boys' song "Little Old Lady from Pasadena," because that's where she grew up. Taylor fooled the crowd by using her bow as a cane to hobble onto the center of the mat, prompting laughter and smiles from Norris and the rest of the crowd, a video of the event shows. She then straightened her back and began a display of powerful stances and fierce facial expressions. Taylor received a standing ovation from Norris and many in attendance.

Afterwards, Norris awarded her a fifth-degree black belt — an accomplishment that takes years to reach in the Chuck Norris System.

"I was so excited. I was able to bow to him, turn around, he put (a black gi) on me, I turned back around and bowed, and then he grabbed me and hugged me so hard, he actually pulled me off the ground almost … my one foot went up," Taylor said.

A gi is a traditional karate uniform. When someone reaches the fifth degree, their white top gets replaced with a black top, she explained.

"(Norris) was so kind, and he's 81, and he made some comments about that he had not been exercising all that much recently and that I had inspired him to go back and to begin to train again, and that made me feel very, very good," Taylor said.

The Layton woman also teaches karate at the dojo where she learned it. During the pandemic, she taught a student from the class at her own home because they had to social distance. Taylor had the student come to her house every day and they practiced on the patio outside, according to her daughter, Lacey Owens.

"It helps her mind to stay calm, to be able to focus on all the forms they have to learn, and that really has kept her brain fresh, I would say. It helps her to remember things, to memorize things," Owens said. "The dedication has given her something to keep going after every day."

Karate isn't the first talent Taylor has developed. She is also an actress who has appeared in plays and films, an artist and a calligrapher.

But karate has been another life experience Taylor is grateful to have found.

"It's just one of those things that makes for a more full life for me, and I absolutely love it, and it makes me feel strong, and it makes me feel confident, and it makes me feel as though I'm able to continue to learn," she said.

When the pandemic kept her home, Owens said karate gave her mother "some purpose in such a crazy time. And now, she can't test again for five years if she wants to go for her sixth degree, but she said to me, 'Why not? Why not? Might as well keep trying."

Owens said that she and the rest of Taylor's family are very proud of her.

"My mom's just been through a lot. She's had a lot of things thrown her way, and she's just always found the light in everything and kept on pushing, and just inspiring other people with her love and her kindness, and everybody that meets her is impacted by her light. And I am extremely grateful to be her daughter," Owens said.

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GeneChing

08-02-2021, 08:34 AM

Red Flags Were Raised, but an Olympic Dream Was Dashed (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/sports/olympics/maya-wasowicz-karate.html)
Maya Wasowicz, a top karate fighter, was knocked out of qualifying under suspicious circumstances. A U.S.O.P.C. report backed up her claims, but Wasowicz still won’t be in Tokyo.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/16/sports/16olympics-karate-1/merlin_167082051_e6307d6c-913b-4307-a42a-db72a5865ab1-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
Maya Wasowicz is an elite fighter, and was favored in a U.S. tournament that could have propelled her to the Tokyo Olympics. The circumstances of her loss raised many questions.Credit...Brittainy Newman/The New York Times

By David Waldstein
Published July 16, 2021
Updated July 24, 2021
Maya Wasowicz was all alone when the last flicker of her Olympic dream died.

The world’s best karate fighters were throwing punches in Paris to determine who would go to the Olympics. Wasowicz and her supporters all felt that she should have been there, too. Instead, she sat on a bed in her grandmother’s apartment in Opole, Poland, streaming the event live on her phone — alone, in the dark.

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“I was definitely grieving it,” Wasowicz said, days later. “My family and friends refused to watch. But I had to see it.”

Over the next few weeks, fans of the Olympics will ingest a tidal wave of heartwarming tales illuminating the realized dreams of scores of dedicated and exceptional athletes. Tales of sacrifice and success, of years of hard work rewarded in a moment of glory. Then there are the stories of those left behind, many of them dedicated athletes like Wasowicz, who dream of medals, but find complex political roadblocks in their way.

A Polish émigré to the United States at the age of 11, Wasowicz discovered karate in Brooklyn as a girl and rose to become one of the elite fighters in the world. In 2016, when word filtered out that karate would be introduced at the next Olympiad, Wasowicz made the life-altering decision to try to be one of the handful of competitors in Japan, the ancestral home of the sport.

She put the rest of her life on hold, moved back in with her parents and dived into training. She even dared to visualize herself in Tokyo, in the arena, the American flag on her suit, fighting for her adopted country.

In order to earn that coveted place, Wasowicz first needed to win a domestic tournament in Colorado Springs in January 2020, an event she entered as one of the favorites. But in a day filled with controversy and acrimony, Wasowicz lost — unfairly, in her mind. An investigation by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee appears to back her contention, shared by other athletes, that the USA National Karate-Do Federation is rife with favoritism and conflicts of interest.

In a scathing report in April, the committee found that the federation “is not capable of fulfilling the responsibilities of an Olympic Sports Organization” and warned that if it did not address some serious issues, it would be stripped of its status as a national governing body.

But for Wasowicz and others, the report came too late. The U.S.O.P.C. did not require the federation to hold a new competition to correct whatever injustices may have existed in Colorado Springs.

“I feel validated that I’m not just a sore loser,” Wasowicz said. “People on the outside saw what was happening. But seeing them get away with all of this is just really tough to accept.”

Today, Wasowicz is back in New York, searching for work and trying to make sense of everything that happened.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/16/sports/16olympics-karate-2/merlin_167083290_0ee88fbd-28a0-4a56-beca-5db4ff28de44-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
When her family moved to the United States from Poland, Wasowicz found a home at the Goshin Ryu dojo in Brooklyn. Credit...Brittainy Newman/The New York Times

Learning to Be New Yorkers

Wasowicz, 27, was born in New Jersey, but she spent her first 11 years of life in Poland, before her family moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2005. Wasowicz remembers everything about her first day in the new metropolis. Her father took her across the Williamsburg Bridge and showed her the magnificent view of Manhattan spreading below. A few hours later, she spotted her first rat in the subway.

Life in a bustling urban environment could sometimes be overwhelming, especially that first bewildering year in school where Maya and her younger brother, Kuba, struggled to grasp morsels of English. The Polish markets and restaurants that dotted the city were places the Wasowicz family found temporary sanctuary and support.

“We talk about it all the time,” Wasowicz said. “What if we ended up in a random city in the middle of America? Here I found people who could relate to my experience. We were very lucky that we ended up in New York.”

One day they happened upon the Goshin Ryu dojo, a karate school in Brooklyn. It was run by Luis Ruiz, who remains Wasowicz’s sensei, or coach. Maya and Kuba reveled in the physical outlet that karate offered, a place where English was not as important as dedication, discipline and honor — or a good measure of athletic ability.

Wasowicz’s parents welcomed an activity that would help their children, who had faced bullying in school, defend themselves and gain self-confidence. For Maya and Kuba, it was just fun, and she continued to work with Ruiz, even after her family moved to Manhattan’s East Village.

It was there, while attending the Tompkins Square Middle School, that Wasowicz also discovered basketball. When she moved on to Beacon High School, Wasowicz joined the school’s varsity team, and four years later she was the school’s career scoring leader and the first Beacon player to have her number retired. She earned an academic scholarship to New York University, and played basketball all four years for the Violets while negotiating the complicated balance of varsity sports, rigorous academics (she majored in economics) and karate.

“I was in awe of Maya,” said Lauren Mullen, N.Y.U.’s coach at the time. “Here’s this 11-year-old girl who knew no English and then goes to N.Y.U. playing two sports at a really high level, and all with this self-confidence and toughness that you rarely see. She was just a winner.”

But as her basketball career ended in 2016, Wasowicz’s Olympic dream zoomed to the fore. She put any career business ambitions aside and moved back into her parents’ apartment in the East Village for the next five years while training two or three times a day with Ruiz in Brooklyn.

“Every athlete has to make that decision,” she said. “You put your life on hold and commit everything to going for it.”

A heavyweight who fights in the plus-68-kilogram class, Wasowicz grew stronger and more dangerous. In 2016 she was part of a U.S. team that won bronze at the world championships in Austria and reached a No. 7 worldwide ranking. In 2019, she won gold at the Pan American championships.
Continued next post

GeneChing

08-02-2021, 08:35 AM

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/16/sports/16olympics-karate-3/merlin_190897011_4d1e8595-7204-43a7-939a-ec9cb174c1be-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
Wasowicz was a star athlete at New York University, excelling at basketball in addition to her karate. Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

The Match

Heading into the U.S. team trials in Colorado Springs in early 2020, Wasowicz was brimming with confidence and poised for destruction. But during her matches against rival Cirrus Lingl that day, curious things happened, according to Wasowicz and Ruiz — their claims backed by both video footage and the independent investigation.

John DiPasquale, the president and chairman of USA-NKF, which has enormous influence over the sport, walked behind the scorer’s table several times during Wasowicz’s matches against Lingl. DiPasquale runs a top dojo in Illinois where Lingl trained, and during one of the early matches between the fighters that day, Wasowicz grew incensed, feeling DiPasquale was trying to influence the scoring in favor of Lingl. During a break, Wasowicz and Ruiz decided that if it happened again, she would complain to the referee.

A video of one of those later matches shows Wasowicz gesturing in consternation toward DiPasquale as he hovered behind the table during a scoring review. He is also seen pacing behind the table, perhaps just nervous for his fighter, during the action. But as the U.S.O.P.C. pointed out, it looked inappropriate and raised doubts.

Wasowicz contends that she had Lingl beaten earlier in the day but was not awarded the points she deserved. That result kept Lingl in the competition, and ensured she and Wasowicz would fight again, in the final. There, Lingl, an expert in her own right, won with a deft head kick. Furious, Ruiz unloaded on DiPasquale, charging that the president had affected the outcome.

When reached by phone for comment on the investigation, DiPasquale said, “Not a chance, pal,” and hung up.

Others in the U.S. federation dismissed complaints of bias. “Maya is one of the best we have,” said Brody Burns, the head coach of the U.S. Olympic team and a sensei at a top dojo in Texas. “But it’s not like she lost to a no name. She lost to a good fighter.”

Wasowicz agrees that she and Lingl are evenly matched. But on that day, she felt she was better, and that she should have earned a spot in the all-important Paris qualifying event.

A few weeks later, though, her problems were dwarfed by the pandemic. During the shutdown, Wasowicz stewed and pondered her options, and learned that other athletes were making similar charges against DiPasquale and the federation. The U.S.O.P.C. agreed to look into the matter and hired DLA Piper, an international law firm, to investigate.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/16/sports/16olympics-karate-4/merlin_190897074_a3edba78-010a-4f63-93eb-f926d000567b-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp
While disappointed that she was not given another chance to qualify for the Olympics, Wasowicz, left, has continued to watch matches. She plans to watch the Olympics as well. Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

The Report

In a blistering letter from Holly R. Shick, the chief ethics and compliance officer of the U.S.O.P.C., to DiPasquale and the national karate federation, dated April 24 and obtained by The New York Times, the committee demanded immediate reforms. It noted the “severity of the issues” and said termination of the federation’s status as the national governing body “may be appropriate at this time.”

The investigation found numerous actual and perceived conflicts of interest, and the letter noted that there is a perception by athletes and coaches “of bias in favor of Mr. DiPasquale’s and Brody Burns’ dojos’ athletes.” Other athletes routinely feel, the investigators wrote, that “they have to ‘beat the system to succeed.’”

Phil Hampel, the chief executive of USA-NKF, declined to comment. A spokesman for the U.S.O.P.C. referred all questions back to the letter.

It read like an indictment, but it did nothing to further Wasowicz’s hope of a redo of the qualifying event. That is why she sat alone in that dark room in Poland while on a family vacation in June, streaming Lingl’s fight in Paris on her phone’s tiny screen.

Lingl lost in the first round, ensuring that not only would she not go to Tokyo, but that the United States would not have a woman karate fighter in Japan.

“There is a part of me that obviously wanted her to win to keep the hope alive,” said Wasowicz, who until the final loss had held out faint hope that she might somehow go as an alternate. “There was also the part I don’t like about myself, that if she loses first round, it will prove my point.”

Now back in New York, Wasowicz is in a recovery phase. Her focus is on starting a career, like most of her N.Y.U. classmates, except it’s five years later. She teaches at her dojo a couple of days a week, sends out 20 résumés a day, and prepares to attack the next phase of her life as she did the last.

“You look back from where I was as an 11-year-old girl and where I am right now,” she said, “if I can do all that, I can do many things.”

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GeneChing

08-02-2021, 09:39 AM

Read my latest feature for YMAA: Olympic Karate: A New Martial Art Enters the Ring (https://ymaa.com/articles/2021/08/olympic-karate-a-new-martial-art-enters-the-ring)

https://ymaa.com/sites/default/files/images/article/articles-20210802-olympic-karate.jpg

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GeneChing

08-08-2021, 08:52 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1HQDP-tkxo

I understand why this was ruled so, but it's a laughing stock for those who don't understand sports vs. martial arts.

Makes me wonder if the medalist took a dive...

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GeneChing

08-13-2021, 09:58 AM

This is in regards to the vid I tried to share earlier here (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?64475-Tokyo-Olympics&p=1321579#post1321579).

Olympic martial artist knocks out opponent with kick, is disqualified from gold medal karate bout (https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/08/07/olympic-martial-artist-disqualified-gold-medal-karate/)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/NUPEMBXXSMI6XJRWDDFMLGUY3Q.jpg&w=916
Iran's Sajad Ganjzadeh, left, was awarded the gold medal after Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia left him unconscious with a high kick in the men's kumite 75-kilogram final. (Hedayatullah Amid/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
By Glynn A. Hill
August 7, 2021 at 4:53 p.m. EDT

In the final bout of karate’s Olympic debut, jubilation turned to dejection for Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia, whose first-minute knockout of Iran’s Sajad Ganjzadeh disqualified him in their gold medal contest Saturday.
Get the latest news and results from the Tokyo Olympics
Hamedi dominated in the early stages of the bout, which served as the final of the men’s kumite in the 75-kilogram division (about 165 pounds). He scored a three-point “ippon” (a technique considered to be a decisive blow) with a hooking kick less than 10 seconds into the fight and added a one-point “yuko” after he punched Ganjzadeh several seconds later.
Almost a full minute in, Hamedi held a 4-1 lead.
But just before that first minute expired, he connected on a high left kick to the head, sending Ganjzadeh to his back, unconscious.
Hamedi hopped into a quick skip and thumped his chest. Ganjzadeh seemed to scream as he went to the mat, and as the official began counting down, two medics ran over to treat him.
Ganjzadeh was motionless and medics placed an oxygen mask on his face before removing him on a stretcher. Hamedi, who initially seemed certain of victory — what would have been Saudi Arabia’s first Olympic gold medal in any sport — appeared apprehensive as officials conferred with each other.
Moments later, Hamedi was disqualified for a hansoku, a serious violation of the rules. The NBC television broadcast said he had unleashed an unchecked attack, following through on his strike as a mixed martial artist would, which is considered too dangerous by Olympic karate standards. Ganjzadeh, who was informed of the decision when he regained consciousness, was awarded the gold medal, and Hamedi was given silver.
Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia was disqualified from the Olympic karate final event when he knocked out Iran’s Sajad Ganjzadeh on Aug. 7. (IOC)
“I’m happy about the gold medal, but I’m sad that I had to win it like this,” Ganjzadeh later told reporters.
Hamedi, who fell to his knees in tears after the decision, later held up his silver medal on the podium, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ganjzadeh. After a series of photos, they embraced and Ganjzadeh raised Hamedi’s hand in the air. Turkey’s Ugur Aktas and Ryutaro Araga of Japan took the bronze medals in the event.
“If you ask me if I agree or not, I disagree, of course, because I love the gold medal,” Hamedi said through an interpreter. “But I am satisfied with the level of performance I gave, and I accept their decision. I don’t have any objection. I think I played well. That’s all I can say.”

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GeneChing

11-26-2021, 12:12 PM

Enter to win Welcome to Karate Autographed by Bruce Costa (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSez4E3XeP8oQSoNtaug-PJY9mfEEPZMM8K0HXJr1yPv4R29cg/viewform)!
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GeneChing

12-17-2021, 02:50 PM

See WINNERS-Welcome-to-Karate-Autographed-by-Bruce-Costa (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72216-WINNERS-Welcome-to-Karate-Autographed-by-Bruce-Costa)
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GeneChing

01-03-2022, 10:23 AM

Where Cobra Kai Fails the Martial Art

https://ymaa.com/sites/default/files/images/article/articles-20220103-where-cobra-kai-fails-the-martial-art.jpg (https://ymaa.com/articles/2022/01/where-cobra-kai-fails-the-martial-art)

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GeneChing

04-01-2022, 09:12 AM

Enter to win Analysis of Genuine Karate autographed by Hermann Bayer Ph.D (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfWUL2DZaTY1rLD8bGVvNC_JebBLXmt_gPFZ6a-2fmKVSkjPA/viewform)!
Contest ends 4/14/2022

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GeneChing

04-17-2022, 12:12 PM

See Winners-Analysis-of-Genuine-Karate-autographed-by-Hermann-Bayer-Ph-D (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72304-Winners-Analysis-of-Genuine-Karate-autographed-by-Hermann-Bayer-Ph-D)

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GeneChing

02-01-2023, 09:35 AM

Russian martial arts official killed in fighting (https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1133200/russian-official-killed-in-fighting)
By Philip Barker Wednesday, 1 February 2023

https://cdn.dmcl.biz/media/image/263450/o/GettyImages-1246670728.jpg
The Donbass region of Ukraine has seen some of the heaviest fighting in the last month ©Getty Images

Russian martial arts official Sergey Uvitsky has been killed whilst fighting with the invading Russian forces in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

Uvitsky, who was 41, had been part of what Russia's official state news agency TASS had described as a "special military operation" when he died.

Further details about the circumstances of his death have not yet been revealed.

Uvitsky was secretary general of the Russian Kyokushin Federation, a karate organisation.

"Sergey has always been distinguished by his indomitable will on the way to the goal and never gave in to difficulties," a bulletin issued by the federation said.

"Sergey was a man with an incredibly strong spirit, a true patriot, devoted to his country until his last breath.

"Therefore, having completed a glorious sports career and becoming one of the leaders of the Russian Kyokushin Federation.

"He stood up to defend the fatherland and died as befits a hero and a warrior while fulfilling a war mission."

Uvitsky had been a master of kyokushin karate and had won silver in the over-90 kilograms category at the 2010 European Championships.

After his competitive career was over he had become an administrator with the sport's federation.

When the war began, Uvitsky had joined the volunteer detachment of the Russian Union of Martial Arts Soyuz (RSMA).

Russian media agency Novosti reported that some 100 members of this unit had been given training by RSMA chairman Yuri Trutnev before embarking on the operation in Ukraine.

In Russia men between the ages of 18 and 27 have been subject to compulsory military call-ups during the war in Ukraine.

Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin had insisted there should be no exemptions and the conscription has also received the backing of Russian Olympic Committee President Stanislav Pozdnyakov.

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