By James Pugh
The 2017 Seibukan USA and Tokko National Training event was held at the D.O. Thoms P.E. Building on the campus at Jones County Junior College last Friday and Saturday. The two-day event hosted over 50 karate members from all over the southeastern United States.
“We were fortunate enough to bring these national karate practitioners to Jones County,” said John Chioco. “We are thankful to President Dr. Jesse Smith, who let us use the P.E. Building here at JCJC for the event.
“It’s been really good. We’ve had kids as young as eight years old to adults as old as 70 years old here, training and learning different skills. To have people attend this event from all over the United States has been special for us. We hope to do this here every year.”
The sport of karate has various styles that are both similar and different, Chioco said the event’s focus is to highlight the styles that benefit everyone.
“There’s always something for someone here that globally fits every style that’s represented,” Chioco stated. “It’s good for our local karate club and students to witness this stuff. It shows that Jones County is fairly prominent in the national scene when it comes to karate.”
The International Olympic Committee announced the addition of six new sports to the docket of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan in August of last year. Among the new sports added were baseball, softball, surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing and karate. Chioco said several kids in attendance were aiming towards competing in the Olympics one day.
“This has been a great experience,” said 15 year old Shodan, Skotokan and USA-NKF National Team member Braden Ivey from Clarke County. “There’s a lot of different styles here so you get to experience a little bit of everything. This is my second time to do so. It’s nice to see what other styles have in common and their differences as well.”
Ivey, who has won medals at the national level and will later compete in the Junior Pan-American games in Argentina and the World Karate Championship in Spain, instructed the younger kids at the two-day event.
Laurel and Jones County native Dan Smith was also among the event’s instructors. Smith now resides in Atlanta, Georgia.
“I studied karate all through high school and college,” said Smith. “After graduating from USM, I went to the army and they sent me to Okinawa, Japan of all places. I’ve been training there [Okinawa] for 48 years under the same teacher. This October, I’ll be going back [to Okinawa] for a training trip. It will be my 44th trip in the last 23 years.”
Smith said this weekend’s event has preceded that in size from last year.
“The last two years we’ve been able to get more and more people,” added Smith. “We try to get different schools of karate involve so that we have more than one voice sharing and teaching.”
The event lasted from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. both days.
