The wide world is competing in karate at the end of this month, and Nanaimo athletes get to be right in the thick of things.
More than 50 athletes from Nanaimo’s Shima Karate School will be representing Canada at the Karate-do Goju-kai Global Championships at the Richmond Olympic Oval from Sept. 27-Oct. 1.
It’s a rare opportunity – worlds come around just once every four years. Shima had one athlete at the last world championships in India, but this time, Canada gets open entries as the host country and the Nanaimo club is making the most of that.
Shima sensei Kurt Nordli is the tournament director for worlds and said 23 countries will be represented, for example Iran, Nepal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and the Philippines. More than 100 athletes are coming from South Africa.
“It is a big, big event for our organization,” Nordli said.
Shima will have athletes ages 7-57 competing and everyone is taking preparations seriously.
“Training’s definitely ramped up,” the sensei said. “Over the last year, especially, it’s gotten crazy. A lot of energy in the dojo.”
He said athletes have been coming in virtually every day to train.
“I’ve been coming to the dojo a lot more,” said Sarah Crago, Shima student. “Extra days, extra hours of training. Just practising everything, making it perfect, making sure that I’ll do well at the tournament.”
Evan Milne, another Shima athlete, said students have been progressing steadily.
“At the beginning we kind of worked on getting things more correct and now, as we’re coming closer to worlds, we’ve started working on the perfection, the repetition…” he said. “We should be at our peak performance for worlds.”
Not only is Milne getting ready to compete in his 16-17-year-old division in both forms and sparring, but he’s also been coaching white, yellow and orange belts. There will be a lot of Nanaimo karate athletes getting to share a special experience together.
“We’re bringing half of Team Canada and just to have that camaraderie from our dojo and to take that to the oval and be there and compete as our whole group, it’s going to be awesome,” Milne said.
Crago said she doesn’t really know what to expect, but is looking forward to a new kind of karate experience.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so we’re all striving to be our best, the best that we can be and hoping to represent Canada and win,” she said. “It’s going to be really cool.”