World Oyama Fighter's Cup 2012

[evergrey]

OSU!

I was really happy with my dojo this year at World Oyama Fighter's Cup!

Lots of great people there, old friends and new. Everyone fought well and displayed freat sportsmanship as well. It really gave me hope for the future of knockdown to see so many people from so many different organizations coming together, having a good time, and supporting one another.

We only had 4 kids enter this year, but they all got trophies. Two trophies for first place, one for second (he might have gotten 1st if he has been proportional to the other kid, who was at least a foot taller than him, and probably easily had 40 pounds on him, heh,) and one for third.



In the full contact knockdown lightweight division, our *7th kyu,* Taka, got third place! I'm very proud of him... he has only 2.5 years of experience, and there were I think 10 people in lightweight total this year. Compare that to Toshiki Sensei (of Yamaki Dojo) in 2nd, who is a tournament veteran and has been training for 15 years! Taka had to fight in the qualifiers, and I think he really surprised most people there at the tournament. He won 3 fights, and lost one, to the guy who took first, I believe. That gut was BRUTAL, and an infighter.



Heavyweight, well I don't know these guys really, but I believe 2nd place was taken by a *6th kyu* from Sensei Callahan's Kyokushin dojo in LA. Note that the third place guy has a green belt... there were plenty of black belts in both knockdown divisions. GO GO GADGET KYU RANKS!



Here are all the fighters in the full contact knockdown division who didn't jet out the door before the group picture, and their coaches/instructors.



Here are two instructors from our little org. One broke his arm at open sparring, or maybe in the class after that, blocking a jodan mawashi geri. The other had an unfortunate knee twisting incident while getting kicked by Taka during open sparring, and tore his meniscus. We called them the Gimp Squad and everybody wanted a picture of them together, lol. I love that everyone at my school has a healthy sense of humor.



Gotapex (Gabriel) and I. He worked out with us on Thursday, and we had a lot of fun together. We sparred after class, and I got a lovely bruise on my forearm, haha! Big fun. Sorry I threw you into the wall!



Seattle (Sensei Hill) and I. He won his division, I believe.



A surprise for me was seeing Duval Hamilton, who came up and introduced himself to me. REALLY NICE GUY, really good people. He does the knockdown fighter podcasts, and is the publisher of OSU! Magazine, a great magazine for knockdown fighters that I am going to be writing for regularly. I think it is published quarterly for now.



Shihan Yamaki and I. I think he might be smiling a little bit here, not sure. HE'S SO DREAMY! Also, really patient and nice and TALL.



The women's division actually had I think 9 women enter this time. Big improvement, both in number of participants and WHEN they held it. This time, instead of their fighting happening in the far corner during the children's division, they got to fight during the grown-ups portion of the tournament.

Maybe someday there will be full contact knockdown for them without bubble wrap too! I and many other women would be really happy about that. I talked to at least two other women who would have entered had there been a knockdown division for women, instead of the padding everywhere "semi-knockdown." Of course, I don't know how many of the women who entered semi-knockdown would go for true knockdown... but a number of them looked pretty hardcore out there!

Overall, I had a great time, and I am so very proud of my school!

OSU!

[Deleted]

Nice write-up ev! Thanks! Congrats to all the winners. Sounds like a fun tournament overall.

[evergrey]

Thanks, BigAl!

I was really happy to see our school so well represented this year. I'm kind of hoping we have a few more guests working out with us when they pop by the bay area, after this. Love meeting new knockdown folks!

One of the things that I love about my dojo is that we are not really political, and we don't tend to judge people by their organization. We see Kyokushin (and it's related styles) as one family, ultimately, and while it's best to e-mail our head instructor before visitng, we tend to welcome anyone who can be a good guest. Being in a big area like SF that has so many people coming and going, and being the only Kyokushin dojo in our area, we tend to get a number of people from other orgs and other parts of the world attending our classes regularly, too. We get people who come here for a work contract or college, and they tend to be pretty happy with our school. It's always great to learn about the way they do things in their part of the world, too.

Because we're small and very much like a family (but not culty) things stay pretty happy and safe, and no one who is a bully or can't leave their ego at the door gets to stay. We train hard, and we bruise each other up a lot, but everyone gets along, which is nice.

Aaaanyway it was awesome meeting so many people and seeing a number of my friends interact for the first time. :}

OSU!

[Deleted]

PM me your dojo information Ev.

[MMX]

Thanks for the write up EV.

[evergrey]

You're welcome, and coming right atchya, bigal! :}