Times Of Swaziland: OVER 100 IN SKILFUL JAPAN KARATE SHOTO TOURNEY

OVER 100 IN SKILFUL JAPAN KARATE SHOTO TOURNEY
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Chris Dlamini on 03/08/2022 08:12:00


MBABANE – A show of skills (kata) and great fighting techniques with
enthusiasm by young karate artists was displayed last Saturday at the Mbabane
Club.
Over 100 young martial artists got together for a tournament held by Eswatini
Japan Karate Shoto (EJKS). This is another full-contact style which is
relatively the latest addition to the others under the Eswatini Karate
Federation (EKF) which houses Oyama Kyokushinkaikan, Taekwondo and Ashihara,
among others.
Ambitious
The martial artists who were as ambitious to try out even movie stunts from the
likes of Jackie Chan and Jet Li entertained the crowd that included officials,
siblings, guardians and parents with the show they put on in the fights, as well
as in the kata division. The latter is purely a display of the martial arts
techniques in their various versions – it is mind blowing when well executed.
EJKS President Wandile Masina said they were thrilled as the EJKS executive to
have a successful tournament with so much energy and skill in it especially from
the younger artists in both boys and girls divisions.
Preparation
“We had karate artists as young as four years as we accommodated the young and
our seniors as well. It was a tournament for white to brown belts artists and
also one in preparation for an upcoming international tournament to be held in
South Africa (Pretoria) next month,” said Masina, a black belt himself and
former Japanese Karate Association (JKA) Eswatini secretary. However, it has
been 12 years since he left JKA while EJKS was founded five years ago.
Congratulated
He congratulated the artists for putting a good show in all the categories being
the kata and kumite. He also congratulated the winners of the tournament and
encouraged all artists to keep working hard and to stay focussed. The winners
are listed as per their divisions.