10th National Championship’s By Steve Mason

Its hard to believe that the association has been in existence for the past decade, it seems like only yesterday that Sensei Charles Gidley started it!  Over that period there have been courses and competitions in abundance and with this our centenary year we have had an action packed calendar that has seen the usual courses and gasshuku’s (training camps) as well as a full series of competitions dedicated to our junior members, I am glad to say all have been a tremendous success.

The culmination of the year and our final competition of the millennium was the 1999 National Championship’s which took place in October at Middleton, Manchester.

The standard of Kumite and Kata across all the categories was superb.  Many of the associations national squad were in attendance as this was a major warm up to the World Championship’s the following month, so as you can imagine they were out to impress and were on top form!

Juniors were again split into open height categories for kumite and age categories for kata, this proved yet again to be an excellent formula for them, there are many up and coming juniors in the association who seem to be thriving on the challenge and doing extremely well, it is boding very well for the future.  This left the Seniors to compete on grade.

The finals were exciting to say beyond the least in each and every category.  If we are all honest there are usually one or two fights or rounds of kata which don’t always get you going but the association seems to produce round after round of pure excitement!

Special mention has to be given to Ian Burndred and Alison Grundy who took their respective titles as Grand Champion’s in the ladies and gents events.  Congratulations to both of you!

A full list of the winners can bee seen below but it is worth noting how many are ranked in both the kata and the kumite events, in modern day competition land it is a satisfying to know that the association is producing well rounded karateka where the standard across the board remains high.

We are looking forward now to the new millennium but would like to  congratulate those that competed in this event and would like to wish them and their families all the best for the future.