August 25, 2015
Taabinga State School’s Sports Hall was packed on Sunday for the first International Sports Karate Association (ISKA) sponsored tournament held in the region.
The South Burnett Martial Arts Tournament, organised by the South Burnett Karate Association, kicked off at 9:00am on Sunday and continued non-stop on several mats until mid-afternoon.
A hundred competitors vied for honours in a wide range of events including Traditional Form, Traditional Weapons, Extreme Musical Forms, Extreme Musical Weapons, Showmanship, Synchronised Kata, Point Sparring, Continuous Sparring, Self Defence, Tricking, Sumo, Sword Combat and Team Sparring.
They came from all over south-east Queensland – and a few even came from central NSW – to test their skills.
Several already had State and International titles under their belts.
What made the tournament particularly special was that it was open to all forms of martial arts – karate, judo, jujitsu, kung fu, tae kwon do and many more.
This let practitioners test themselves against other martial art styles they might not often encounter in their chosen field.
“The big advantage of this is that if you win in one of these competitions, you know you’ve done very well indeed,” Queensland ISKA State President Bill Wakefield said.
“Some competitors who win here today will go on to the State Titles in early October; and some of those winners will then go on to the World Titles in Germany next year.
“It’s a very strong competition.”
Bill said Sunday’s competition was the first of its kind held in the South Burnett.
But he was keen to return next year, if possible, because he thought the local organisation of the event by the South Burnett Karate Association had been very impressive.
He was also pleased with the venue although future tournaments may have to relocate to a bigger site if competition numbers continue to expand.
“The only problem we ran into was getting enough accommodation for all the visiting competitors,” Bill said.
Another happy outcome of the tournament was that aside from a couple of minor scrapes, the tournament was free of any serious injuries.
“This is an incredibly disciplined sport and every move is calculated and controlled,” Bill said.
“So injuries are uncommon, and we like to keep it that way.”
- More information about the South Burnett Karate Association can be found on their website
