Local Kyokushin karate practitioners challenged technique, power and speed against black belts during a three-day worldwide conference in Banff, last weekend.
The ninth bi-annual North American and International Black Belt Conference for the International Karate Organization’s (IKO) Kyokushin Karate kicked off in the mountain town on Friday (Oct. 10) and went through Sunday. Participants were able to take part in sessions and seminars at Sally Borden Fitness and Recreation at The Banff Centre under some of the world’s most respected Kyokushin instructors from the U.S., Brazil and South Africa.
Kyokushin Karate, approaching its 50th anniversary, gained popularity after its creation to emphasize realistic movement and fighting while training. The style sets itself apart from the more traditional Karate where there is usually little or light contact in sparring.
With world-class training available, the conference is also a good opportunity for instructors attending to learn innovative ways to teach traditions to their students. Daymon Miller, head instructor at Banff Kyokushin Karate and a black belt, said the camp went over a lot of the fundamentals and foundations for a more standardized approach.
“One of the great things about having a camp like this … there’s more work about teaching the teacher and helping us become better instructors,” Miller said. “I really like Shihan (Seiji) Isobe’s instruction style. It’s really tough, but at the same time he brings a lot of levity and even humour to what we’re doing. (On Saturday night) we had a really hard training session and it was all conditioning and it was brutal, but there was still happiness and people were laughing.”
The conference allowed a certain amount of brown belt (a level below black) practitioners to partake, which some of Miller’s students took full advantage of.
“It’s pretty cool we can have something like this connected right in our own backyard,” said Miller, adding that Banff has hosted the past four conferences.
“Students who make it to this level have an opportunity to train with some of the best in the world.”
Miller made sure not to be tardy in between a brief break and interview with the Outlook, and hustled back to the next seminar that awaited him.
One of the draws for international practitioners to the conference is having high-level black belts present, which enables them to challenge for their next level, also known as Dan testing. Isobe conducted some of the IKO sanctioned Dan tests.
“The most important aspects of karate are power and speed and technique,” Isobe said. “This is the ninth camp and for myself this is my fourth camp, so compared to the previous camps we have seen the students’ level improving a lot and I’m very satisfied in that result.”
Banff is chosen to hold the bi-annual conference, as it’s a focal point of tourism and flagship for Canada Parks.
