|
Book a Seminar |
Support This Site |
Join the Association |
 |
 |
|
| Have the
natkd.com instructors teach a seminar at your
location. |
Keep
natkd.com a free and growing resource. Suggested
donation = $20 |
Are you an
student or instructor looking for a Martial Arts
Organization to join? |
40th
All South Karate Championship
A perspective
from a participant’s point of view
by
James R. Melton
April 3, 2004 Takayuki
Mikami and the All South Karate Championship reached the
milestone of having hosted the regional karate championship in
New Orleans, Louisiana for the 40th year. When it first began
the tournament was supported by five of the first karate clubs
in the south: the LKA in New Orleans, The Shreveport Karate
Club, the Monroe Karate Club, and the Lake Charles Karate Club,
all from Louisiana, and the Mobile Karate Club from Alabama.
In the ‘60’s “karate”
was a new activity that few people knew anything about, and
fewer still actually practiced in the United States. Because of
this, in the early days a real effort was made by Mikami to get
all styles of karate and tae kwon do to participate. It may seem
strange, but in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s everyone pretty much played
by the same rules and participated in each others tournaments,
with the exception of some organizations which forbade their
students from doing such things. One only has to look at the
roster of the winners of black belt kumite in the early days to
see that he was quite successful in attracting the top fighters
of the “blood ‘n’ guts” era: Fred Wren, James Butin, Demetrius
Havanas, and Bill Wallace, just to name a few who were
nationally prominent at the time. For those too young to
remember, those were the days when “safety equipment” meant
taping up your knuckles so you wouldn’t cut them on the other
guys head, and the “No blood, no foul” rule was pretty much in
force. Also, in those days, there was a rule against excessive
contact, unless he was coming toward you when you hit him. We
just figured he should have known better. It was called “Blood
‘n’ guts” for a reason.
Toward the end of the
‘70’s and the early ‘80’s the tae kwon do people started going a
different direction, with the advent of kick/punch gear, and the
All South moved toward its current rules. Not that the guys who
ruled the kumite divisions were any less tough: Pat Spencer,
Mike Urpshot, John Caluda (a professional pastry chef at work
and a beast in the ring), Mark Prudhomme, Jerry Kattawar, Jr,
Dan Almon, Danny Guidry, Shadi Barazi, Dimitri Papadopoulos, and
Joe Giluso just to name a few.
There have also been
many good kata competitors over the years such as Bob Allen, Tom
Spiller, and Pat Jennings. However, two people stand out in the
history of kata in the All South. The first is Leon Sill, who
won kata six times in the black belt division and then three
times in the senior black belt division. He was one of the first
Americans to do the kata Unsu in competition. However, the
unchallenged queen of the kata ring in the history of the All
South is Nikki Ikeda. She won the women’s black belt division
and astounding 14 times over a twenty-two year period. She also
won the senior black belt division four times. In 2004, after
having “retired” from competition, she won team kata at the All
South with her daughter Mariko as one of her teammates.
I myself have
participated in the All South 32 times in a row as of 2004 and
won the senior black belt division three times. The highlight of
my competitive career was in 2002 when I beat Nikki in the
senior division, for the first—and only—time. She won Women’s
black belt kata that year, but I got lucky.
In the early years,
educating the public and building relationships was an important
component of the function of the All South. To do that, Mikami
made an effort to get everyone who was interested to
participate, and famous instructors from around the world gave
demonstrations. One early demo that stands out in my mind was a
knife defense demo with Mr. Mikami using the knife and Mr.
Nishiyama doing the defending. To this day I have never seen
speed like that.
According to Mikami,
the education aspect has been taken care of by “time and the
movies”, for better or worse. No real effort is made to
publicize the tournament outside All South Karate Federation as
it has evolved into more of a family affair now, complete with
relatives, in-laws and outlaws-such as
myself. Instead of 300 to 400 competitors, now it is more
like 150 to 200. But unlike most karate tournaments now, the
majority of the competitors are adults, and lots of them black
belts. Even the senior black belt kata division had 25-30
competitors in it.
Anyone is welcome who
wants to play by the All South rules, but it is now mostly a
family affair used to give us an excuse to get together with old
friends, and have some really good competition, while developing
the next generation as well as, in Mr. Mikami’s words “...the
sense of group spirit and cooperation that will make another 40
years possible”.