ON Saturday, November 1, Barry Kyokushin Karate Club held, and competed in, the first IKKU Welsh Open in Barry Memorial Hall, and event organised by chief instructor Senpai Phill Sedgmond and his committee at Barry Kyokushin Karate Club.

This tournament was the biggest Kyokushin Open held in Wales for over a decade, with hundreds of competitors and watchers from all over the UK. The purpose of this tournament was to build bridges with other Kyokushin clubs in Wales, and with other organisations - and it was a fantastic success.

The day began with the Kata competition, and Barry Kyokuhshin Juniors stormed the first category, taking home all three top spots. Lucy Chick took home third, Justine Bolanos took second, and her older brother Ben Bolanos took home first place. All three competitors performed their Kata to a very high standard and beat another five juniors to their positions. Three well deserved positions for these three juniors.

In senior Kata Rhian Evans represented the club, and came up against higher, more seasoned competitors and fellow organisation competitors. Rhian’s first Kata (Pinan Ni) secured her a place in the final with 1.0 above her competitors. Although Rhian’s much higher graded and seasoned competitor performed the same chosen Kata that Rhian had practised, she pushed on and secured herself a well deserved first place, adding a Welsh title to join her English and British titles.

Cadet Semi-Contact was next on with Sebatian Barczewski and Andrei Espiritu taking part in CS1 six - seven year old division. Both the boys stormed their previous fights, neither losing a single one to competitors from all over the country, to secure a place in the final. Although it’s difficult to fight your own teammates, these two fought a very hard, very close fight, but it was Andrei who took home first place for Barry Kyokushin, leaving Sebastian with an incredibly respectful second place.

Justine Bolanos was next to win herself a title in CS2 eight - nine year olds. Justine came up against nine much larger boys, and although slightly intimidated, she fought incredibly hard, losing just one fight to enable her to fight for third place against another Barry competitor, Sam Allen. Both fought very hard but it was Justine’s determination to see her dominate the fight and win herself a third place.

Men’s Senior Clicker saw Paul Lambert representing Barry Kyokushin, competing for the very first time. Paul trained very hard for this competition and went in with a few nerves, competing against much younger fighters. Paul’s first fight was against one of the younger fighters, but Paul took to the mat and countered every attack, and keeping a solid defence. After a unanimous win, Paul sailed to the final. Paul, still fatigued, came against a fellow organisation competitor of the same age, but continued to move and counter every attack and dominated his opponent to take home a much-deserved first place.

Last for the day was Female Clicker, with Rhian Evans representing the club again, competing in clicker for the very first time. Rhian dominated the first round with head kicks and quick counter attacking and went through to the final by a unanimous decision. In the final Rhian came up against a competitor with a wealth of fighting experience, who was much taller. Although intimidated Rhian fought hard and strong, throwing in head kicks, but was unfortunate to miss out on first place by a majority decision, but took home a very respectful second place.

Senpai Phill, chief instructor at Barry Kyokushin, said: “It’s been over a decade since students in Wales had an event they could attend in their own country. Until now, many of us would travel all over the UK attending what we can and obviously where finances would allow it. The current economic climate is very unfair on our young students and parents to travel to these far off places to compete, we all want to allow our children to compete and we obviously want to support them, and now we can. This annual event is the start of something new and special for this sport and it’s completely open, any Kyokushin organisation can enter, this event was also a significant milestone for me too. This year is my 25th year training in Kyokushin karate and with the help of my committee at Barry Kyokushin Karate club I've managed to put this tournament on to give something back to a sport that given me so much over the years. I was really pleased to see many clubs in Wales come and support this event and just as many coming over from England. Seeing everyone leave with smiles on their faces was such a rewarding experience”.

Barry Kyokushin train on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6.30pm to 7.30pm for under 16’s, 7.30 to 9pm for 16 and over at Castleland Community Centre. Anyone interested in joining this hugely successful karate club should contact them on 01446 408974 or barrykarate@hotmail.co.uk. Further info can be found on their facebook page or website; www.bkkc.co.uk.