Karateka from Kagawa Sensei’s Teikyo University Karate Club made a fantastic showing at the Asian Karate Federation Senior Championships last week! JKS members will be pleased to know that alumni and current students at Teikyo brought home half of Japan’s ten medals, and more gold between them than any other country.*
Honestly, I hadn’t followed the National Team closely until now. But about a week earlier, I was really enjoying the chance to finally watch the All-Japan Championships in person again at the Nippon Budokan.
After Japan’s tournaments being spectator-free for so long, and mostly cancelled, I got into the spectatorship like never before. As a result, fresh interest in the current crop of athletes was sparked in me, and I followed the Asian Championships more closely this year.
Knowing there is not much English-language reportage on the Japanese National Team, and that my karate friends are interested in who’s up-and-coming in Kagawa Sensei’s stable, I thought I’d put together some info on this year’s medalists from the Shotokan lineage.
The World-Beating Women’s Kata Team
This kata team out of Teikyo University already won the WKF World Championship earlier this year, and they’ve just repeated that success at Almaty, with a crisp performance of Unsu to beat the Indonesian team.
Yabumoto and Ishibashi, Teikyo 4th-years now, continue to make a strong team with Taira, their senior by three years.
Ishibashi also gave a strong performance at the All-Japan Championships this month, powering through Empi in the middle of an earthquake! Though perhaps the quake threw her off a little, and she went home with a bronze, it was impressive nonetheless.
Someya Kayo
JKS members should already know Someya Kayo as a graduate of the kenshusei instructor training program. Or, if not, perhaps as the 2012 WKF -68 kg Kumite World Champion.
Well, adding to those accolades she brought home gold for the fourth time this Asian Championship, proving she is still very much one to watch.
Although Kayo and her sister Mayumi are no longer JKS instructors, they’re still training together at Teikyo, and are supported by Theater Academy (originally Asai Production) where the JKS Honbu Dojo is based.
Follow her on Instagram to show your support!
Sawae Yuzuki
Soon after losing her title as national champion by a hair’s breadth (watch here), Sawae Yuzuki came back strong in Almaty to beat Olympic bronze-medalist Sofya Berultseva of Kazakhstan in the +68 division. Her first ever continental crown.
Sawae is a 3rd-year Teikyo University student from Chiba Prefecture, was national champ in 2020, and is shaping up to have a hell of a year in 2022. I’m looking forward to watching it unfold.
Suzuki Maya & Yazawa Sumika — Women’s Kumite Team
Besides Someya and Sawae, the rest of the women’s kumite team also come from Kagawa Sensei’s stable. Yazawa Sumika is a 4th-year at Teikyo, while Suzuki Maya is the current kenshusei trainee at the JKS Honbu Dojo.
JKS members may know Suzuki Sensei from one of the online International Seminars held in the past year. If not, they’ll surely have a chance to train with her in the spring!
Nakano Soichiro
Of the men’s medals at the Asian Championships, the -67 kg gold was won by world #3 Nakano Soichiro for Japan, Teikyo, and the JKS when he took out Alkhatami of Saudi Arabia in the finals.
Nakano represented Kyoto Prefecture at the open-weight All-Japan Championships earlier this month, progressing to the third round where he was eliminated by the larger Mori Yuta, a fellow world bronze-medalist.
*Some sites report a combined medal count for the Senior, U21, Junior, and Cadet Championships held on the same weekend. E.g., this WKF report. Naturally, this results in different rankings. Check out the senior results here.
Main image via @kayosomeya1
Karate Pilgrim 