Officials and Coaches:
Tats Nakamura - Vancouver
Johnny Leblanc - New Brunswick
The
24th Canadian Fighting Spirit Championships was held at the
College Notre Dame in Montreal and we had a special guest ,
former Kyokushin World Champion and K-1 Kickboxing Star Shihan
Francisco Filho.
With 1200 people in attendance, I was
happy to see some great people from Montreal who strive
to make Canadian Kyokushin Karate the best it can be and to
contribute to the growth of the IKO Kyokushinkaikan. I was
fortunate to meet the attendees including: Shihan Andre
Gilbert, Shihan Renald Lamarre , Shihan Pierre
Cataford, Shihan Allain Bonnamie,
Sensei Lino Gambuto,
Sensei Sylvie Lamarre and Sensei Sylvain Lemire. And it was
also great to see my teammates whom I have been proud to be on
the North American team with at those World Tournaments that I
fought in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Sensei Tats Nakamura from Vancouver,
who is my former Karate teacher from 2001 to 2008 ,
participated in this event as well. I was his apprentice and
fighter for all those years and owe much of stuff I know about Karate to
him. Since I moved to my home province of New Brunswick in
2008, I have established my own dojos at five different
locations, which follow the training style of Vancouver
Kyokushin Karate.
It is
always a great joy to see him and his team at a special event
such as this. We had planed for a couple of
months to meet and participate in this high caliber tournament.
Sensei Tats brought Mark Berg from his dojo. The
World Tournament contender,
Mark placed 1st at the Vancouver Cup 2011 last
December. He was aiming for a
title shot of the Super Heavyweight division at this event.
And I brought the New Brunswick Kyokushin Challenge
lightweight champion, Chrysat Allogho.
There were over 100 competitors and
some were world class fighters. For the last few months I had
been preparing Chrysat for this competition. The
preparation included, according
to him, the hardest training camp he
has had in his life. Chrysat
started martial arts at 5 years old in his native country of
Gabon in Africa. He is now a university student at the
Universite de Moncton and has trained at our dojo for one
year. When Chrysat first joined me he had great talent with
lightning fast kicks. His weaknesses were defense and punching
techniques. We have worked so hard for 1 year together
and now he is a complete Kyokushin fighter.
On the day of the tournament, Sensei
Tats appointed me to coach Mark Berg as he was occupied as one
of the main judges in the event. I truly did my best to prepare
Mark Berg and Chrysat before their matches with proper warm
ups and strategic advice. The first fight would be Chysat vs
Edgardo Paz Briceno. Edgardo was from the famous Lamarre
Dojo and I knew it would be a tough challenge. In the first
round it was truly a close fight with nonstop action, the
crowd was excited and it was a draw at the end of the round.
The extension round was no different and only in the last 20
seconds Edgardo started to feel the effects of Chrysat's upper
cuts and right low kicks and was not able to regain his energy
in time to win the round which was awarded to Chrysat. This
was truly the hardest fight he had throughout the day. He was
so exhausted as he gave 100% of himself.
Now fully recovered, Chrysat moved to
the second round where he would face Shihan Andre's fighter,
Stephen Taylor. For this match Chrysat had a extra
encouragement on him. Sensei Nakamura had some free time from
officiating and sat next to me as coach for Chrysat. Chrysat
seemed more relaxed during the fight and landed a beautiful
ushiro mawashi geri
(spinning heel
kick) to the head which
clearly landed and scored a wazari (half point). The score
resulted in the win of the fight.
The next fight I had to coach would
be Mark Berg's first fight against Sebastien Vallee from
Chateauguay Dojo. During this round Mark seemed a bit slower
and less intense than usual but the powerful heavy weight did
enough to secure the win. Sensei Tats was not quite happy
with Mark's speed during the match so my only advice passed
onto the Vancouver fighter for the next match was to kick less
but when he would kick to set them up with punches and lots of
speed.
Now that the semi finals were done we
had a big job to do in the finals which both fighters had made
it to. First to go was the final lightweight match which was
Chrysat's last fight and biggest challenge of the day against
top North American fighter and champion Julien Marquette from
Boucherville's Shihan Cataford dojo. The fight was one of the
most exciting of the day with crushing blows traded Julien's
superior punching power were awesome and on the other hand
Chrysat displayed a rampage of lighting fast acrobatic kicks
which made the crowd scream wow during the tough fight.
The judging this day was truly
impressive and fair, the decision was a draw and Julien and
Chrysat prepared for a extension round , the battle was
ongoing just like the first round but near the last minute
Julien landed heavy punches which slowed down Chrysat enough
that he felt desperate to land a knock-out with high rolling
kicks. Julien Marquette deserve to win as the judges decision
was final. This was Chrysat Allogho's 2nd real Kyokushin
tournament and a 2nd place finish made all of the New
Brunswick team very proud !
The last task of the day for me was
to help coach Mark Berg beside Sensei Tats. Mark was to face
David Labreque from Laval. David fought very well at his
previous round that I felt worried Mark would have a hard time
beating the black belt in the finals.
To my surprise Mark Berg just came
out more relaxed in the final bout of the day and
displayed strong punches and fast low kicks which landed at
will. David was a bit outclassed by Mark's power and was
unable to give Mark enough damage to pull a win. Mark Berg
easily won the fight to prove that he was indeed the 24th
Kyokushinkai Fighting Spirit Super Heavyweight Champion.
All
in all, it was a great experience for me and Chrysat to work
together with Sensei Tats and Mark. The matches that Chrysat
fought gave him tremendous confidence and experience as well.
I would like to thank Shihan Andre and his team of the
Montreal dojo for hosting such a great tournament. Special
thanks goes to Shihan Francisco Filho
for travelling all the way from Brazil. It was great honor for
all the fighters to compete in from of the World Champion.
Finally, I would like to thank IKOK-C for giving us access to
the tournament. Osu.
Johnny
Leblanc
Kyokushin New Brunswick
A
group photo at the awards ceremony
with Shihan Andre Gilbert and
Shihan Francisco Filho
