Student Spotlight: Brathis wins 1st Place in Sparring at Ontario Karate Tournament

Budo Kombat student Brathis won in his division at a Karate tournament held by Barton Martial Arts in Ontario a couple weeks ago.

Brathis has been attending Budo Kombat dojo since 2021 on weekends as a supplement to refine, diversify and advance his martial abilities and techniques in parallel to his existing Shotokan Karate foundation and training at ACMA. We gave him many rounds of sparring and a variety of high-volume, unorthodox styled strikes from different angles leading up to the tournament to assist in preparing him for competition. In addition to improvement in attributes and abilities, the methods and preparation provided at Budo Kombat dojo gave him more mental assurance and a sense of security to bring his best to his first competition.

About Sport Karate Point Sparring:
It assists in developing speed, timing, range/distance management, explosiveness, and eventual mastery of control (to move 'fast' but not 'hard' - emulating some aspects of real combat while training safely for yourself and your partners).

Most Karate Sparring rules are a blend between Olympic Boxing and TaeKwonDo whereby points are not scored based on power, rather on clean 'touch strikes' (with good form) to vital targets of the opponent. The principle behind this is to hit and not get hit, and if someone gets tagged, in theory there would be potential for much more damage. Participants are generally warned and eventually penalized where control is lost, if they go too hard in their strikes. (+low kicks do not count for points)

Such point-sparring practices should be used in conjunction with other 'harder' training methods. It is a good goal for ones Martial Arts training practices to be a balance between the hard and soft, to be effective while prolonging the body for further training and development (prevent injury).

GREAT WORK BRATHIS, in taking the steps to compete in your first formal Karate Tournament (Shiai), this alone is a win (to face the jitters and anxiety in doing so), let alone winning 1st in Sparring as well as two other medals (Bronze in Kata and Weapons). Oss!

Highlight reel includes training footage at Budo Kombat Dojo.