Sean Stevens, Cooper Martin, Buddy Dare and Stella Martin.
Members of the Mas Oyama’s Kyokushin Karate Australia – Harden Dojo attended a tournament at Griffith over the weekend.
The Times caught up with Jeremy Martin who took children Stella and Cooper, who competed with Buddy Dare at the event.
Jeremy said, “Stella had three fights and won her first and continued on to the next stage and won her second and also won her third. There were six in her division.
“Unfortunately Cooper was in a turned 12 group and he had five in his division, so he didn’t get a second prize because he lost. He lost by a split decision.
“Buddy Dare lost his first fight, but he got to fight for third as he had four in his division. Unfortunately he couldn’t continue as he got struck to the groin and lost that fight.
“Both boys did extremely well considering they were up against a lot higher grade belts as they go off weight a lot more than belt type.
“The boys had some really good fights and did exceptionally well.
“Stella versed a young girl who has competed in Japan and stopped her with about twenty seconds to go with a leg kick and got the gold medal.
“Cooper and Stella are orange belt with white stripe and they have been competing for 14 months against kids who have been doing it since they were five years old and three or four belt grades higher.
“It was a good experience for them as the only other tournament they have been in was a Riverina only tournament which had less people and not as many travellers.
“It was good to get them involved in that higher grade karate.
“There were 250 competitors taking part, but that included the adult section, so there would have been over 100 kids in the junior section.
“Sean Stevens is their instructor and his main goal is to get the kids to tournaments.
“I can’t speak more highly of Sean as he pushes the kids to where they need to be if they want to go to tournaments.
“He travelled to Griffith to support the kids, he doesn’t get anything out of it other than pride seeing them compete.
“It was a large competition with people coming from Melbourne, Sydney and around the state.
Well done Stella, a Star of the future.
