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In August, Shihan Trevor Fredericks travelled to Turkey with a group of Full Contact karateka comprising members of African Enshin, Ashihara Karate, as well as Kyokushin (Matsushima) to attend the World Bravery Games, a full contact - no pads, no gloves event organised by the Turkish Sayokan Federation.
Kaicho Hoosain Narker served as delegation leader with Shihan Trevor
Fredericks (UWC dojo) as the Manager. The team placed third overall with Haashim Mullins narrowly missing gold in the lightweight division as he could not fight the final fight due to doctor's orders as he had sustained a bad cut above his eye in a previous fight.
Abubakr Petersen was awarded with the "most technical fighter award".
What stood the team in good stead was the fact that we knew about
acclimatising and carbo-loading. The tournament was held in Kayseri City and we stayed at a ski-resort (Erciyes) which was 2215m above sea-level. With Kaicho having fought in Denver (the Mile High City) in the 1988 US Open Full Contact Challenge - he learnt the hard way about breathing at high altitude, so since our arrival in Erciyes, we ran and trained at least three times a day when most of the other countries took it easy.
Fighting time was 5 minutes at a soccer stadium on grass with the extension being another five minutes in the event of a draw - so we carbo-loaded with Corn Syrup and Energade and it all proved to be effective for us with our 3rd Place victory. The first position was taken by Iran - they had a team of over 30 persons compared to our handful.
What's next - the team is now more motivated and looking forward to South Africa hosting the next World event here either in 2009 or 2010.
We also had the opportunity to train in the Korean Sword Art of Haedong Kumdo as taught by Grandmaster Kim, Jeong Seong, who has taught some seminars here in South Africa in the last two years. We've struck a friendship with him and he proudly wore one of our South Africa tops for the duration of his stay there.
Three members of the UWC Dojo has been selected to represent Southern Africa at the World Bravery Games to be held in Turkey from 21 - 26 August 2007.
They include:
Shihan Trevor Fredericks (S.A. Team Leader)
Alwie Thomas
Oldman Koboto
Other members of the South African team include:
Kaicho Hoosain Narker (Chef de Mission/Head Ashihara Karate)
Haashim Mullins
Stanley Ncgobo
Abubakr Petersen
Bonnie Ngobo
Victor Gwebu
Lwazi Dlamini
National Colours have been applied for by the team through Karate South Africa.
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