22/08/2026
🥋 Karate Festival 2026 🥋
Thank you everyone for your hard work today!
We had 35 participating in sparring — 8 from Senjo Dojo - Kyokushin Karate- Field Dojo, 8 from Cannonvale Kyokushin Karate Club Inc., and 19 from our dojo.
For many of the students, this was their first time stepping onto the mat to sparring with someone in an event like this. It takes a lot of courage to overcome the nerves and the feeling of wanting to run away, and getting onto the mat and giving it a go today was a FANTASTIC first step.🏅🎉
It’s not just about winning or losing.
After each sparring session, think about:
“Was I able to do what I have been practising in class?”
Reflecting on this will help you improve and take the next step forward. Let’s keep training hard when we return to the dojo!
I also had the opportunity to experience being a Referee today. I usually work as a corner referee(flag), but this time I challenged myself to be the center Referee.
Seeing the fight from the center referee’s perspective gave me a different understanding of what is required from the corner referee. Instead of focusing on one particular point, I needed to watch the whole fight and make quick decisions. Of course, I made some mistakes and missed some things, but it was a great learning experience for me too. I’m sure I’ll DO BETTER next time!🔥
Today was a valuable learning experience not only for me, but for all of our students and everyone who participated.
A big thank you to Hanshi Trevor and the Senjo Dojo team from Mackay for travelling, and to Sensei Belinda, Sempai Dallas, all the students and parents from Cannonvale. We really appreciate you coming and supporting the event.
And a huge thank you to everyone from Proserpine who helped with cleaning and setting up the dojo yesterday, the BBQ today, and the clean-up afterwards. We couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help. Thank you, and great work everyone!
Now, let’s get back to training and keep working hard from next week!
Hitomi Oikawa
Osu! 🥋
