High standards at karate tourna

Venue was the Jean Pierre Complex, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain.

“The black belt division was of a very high standard,” he said, “especially those students coming from the Trinidad Karate Association and the Shotokan Karate-do Intern-ational Federation of Trinidad and Tobago.”

Sensei Sydney stated that his Goshindo Karate students participated in the Kata (fighting sequences against imaginary opponents) part of the tournament but they didn’t take part in the Kumite (fighting) aspect of the competition.

“We didn’t take part in the Kumite because our school had the largest number of referees competing in the tournament, so we decided not to fight because it would’ve been a conflict of interest.”

He said his Karate school will continue to support the national karate body and he hoped for major structural changes nationally in the fighting style to enable the country’s young people to benefit from the martial art.

He also congratulated some of his students including Jason Dhoray, Marc Anthony Sydney, Je-Marc Nunes, Yolanda Morales Carvalo, Dana Lewis, Shaun Manoo, Harun Abdul-Haqq, Tariq Abdul-Haqq, Riccardo Garcia and Jamir Daniel for their outstanding performances at the tournament.