On the 2nd of June Sensei Ray Irving hosted the Counties Shotokan Karate Tournament. With nearly 190 competitors from over 20 clubs from around the country it was a well run tournament with comments from the Fushin Ryu Students about how friendly everybody was.

The Northharbour Fushin Ryu Team consisted of

Richard Rahardja Carl Monk Sonya Summon Marina Monk Chris Rahardja Sandeep Summon Charlotte Munro Brendon Running Shamendra Hurbuns Michael Lynch Jeremy Alexander with special guest in the team kumite Travis Butler from Kofukan dojo in Northcote.

Kata was done on the points system so only one kata was needed. Fushin Ryu students fared quite well with Sonya, Richard, Carl, Marina, Chris, Charlotte taking gold, Sandeep was 2nd to Chris, Travis won gold with Jeremy 2nd, Brendon 3rd and Shamendra 4th in the black belt division. Big Mike was 4th in the under black belt division.

In Team kata all 3 teams took gold a great effort with the 2 junior teams competing together for the first time and the senior team together after a year apart.

Kumite was Ippon Shobu, two waza ari or one ippon to win. This made for exciting but sometimes very short bouts! no room for error! a good thing to keep competitors focused on the job at hand. Again we had some luck with the FRK team with Richard, Carl, Marina, Chris, Charlotte and Mike taking gold with Sonya 2nd, Travis taking 1st over Brendon with a great Haito to take the match and Shamendra 3rd in the black belt division. Sandeep was a painful 4th nothing a groin guard and better moving won't fix in the future!

The final event of the day was the 3x3 team kumite the FRK/Kofukan team of Travis, Brendon and Shamendra took 1st place with some exciting competition and the Mera Shotokan/FRK team with Mike took Bronze.

It was a great day catching up with old friends, friendly supporters and a gracious host! We look forward to next years competition were I'm sure we'll have many more students competing.