Sunday Night at Worlds

The culmination of days of competition: the Finals and Grand Championships!

We had four of our own competing on this evening. Michael Hickman, Isaac and Benjamin Prewett presented their synchronized kata in an effort to win the Team Kata Grand Championship. If the cheers of the crowd would have decided the winner, it would have gone to "Warriors for Christ", without question. But the victory went to three black belt women from the Mandeville Karate Training Center. Given the fact that some of them have been black belts longer than some of our team have been alive, I think our boys did very well! (Although second places aren't awarded in the grand championship competition, our team's scores put them in second place, well ahead of the other teams.)

Travis Christensen battled for the Black Belt Men's Lightweight World Championship, and was awarded a well fought second place in that division.

The rest of the evening was filled with more exciting sparring, competition for Grand Championships in weapons and kata, and an enjoyable demo by Fumio Demura and two of his students. It was a wonderful wrap-up to four days of martial arts adventure!