Photo by Florence Lazenby

Last Saturday saw the first CUKC competition to occur since the disruption caused by the pandemic began. Although COVID-19 restrictions still forced the club competition to take place in a kata-only format, there was still an impressive range of performances from both the Dan and Kyu grade categories to make up an exhilarating morning of competition, setting a high bar for the return to upcoming competitions over the next academic year.

The Dan grade category occurred in 2-round format, with the highest scoring 4 individuals proceeding to the second round and performing a different kata to the kata initially performed in the first round. There was a great variety of katas demonstrated, ranging from Shotokan, Shito-Ryu and Goju-Ryu styles, with Chris, Danielle, Tom and Dao eventually proceeding to the next round. Chris’ excellent performance of Sochin resulted in his overall win in the category. The Kyu grades category also saw a high level of kata performances, with Fei winning this category with his performance of Tekki Shodan. The competition was then wrapped up with the Mens’ Team Kata performance of Jion.

After his high-quality performance in both rounds of the Dan grade category and in the team kata, the Alvaro Angeriz Award for best overall performance in the club competition was awarded to Dao.

Congratulations to the winners and all of the competitors, and a large thank you must go to Sensei Richard, Sensei Herve and Sensei Julian for refereeing, and Eleanor and Flo for manning the table.

Tom Xu
CUKC Men's Captain
27th June 2021