OVER 100 IN SKILFUL JAPAN KARATE SHOTO TOURNEY

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.

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