Victor Swinimer Suparenpei Kata Tournament

In my previous post I presented the Suparenpei learning group.
I will continue with this post as Mattson sensei proposed us to go for the 1st  Suparenpei International Tournament. Due to the COVID and the contenders spread of around the globe we did it remotely.

We started with 60 persons learning the kata and finished with 20 contenders the Tournament jury was composed by some Hanshi with of course Kristin (our Suparenpei Teacher).

 

According to George Mattson this tournament was not so easy to judge : “With so many really great demonstrations of the form, the judges had a very difficult challenge of their own, making the decision as to which presenters would make the four-place winners’ circle. In the end, I had to make the final decision, based on those candidates placing in the top four places by at least two judges.
I’ve judged many tournaments in kata and I must admit, this was my toughest event!”

1st Tournament Final Ranking

1. Winner & Platinum Medal : Evgeny Rybin
2. Gold Medal : Lionel Reynaud
3. Silver Medal : Jannet Okazaki
4. Bronze Medal : Olivia Livingstone

It’s always difficult to comment your own ranking. To have watched after the tournament in detail all the performance I can understand Mattson sensei previous comment about the difficulty to judge it.

Gold Medal is a nice medal and I am very happy to be in the TOP4 and very proud to be with Evgeny who won the last Okinawan Traditional Karate Championship in 2018. I liked lot of suparenpei performance such as Olivia ,Jannet and Rik who delivered a very strong performance.

The Tournament is one thing but for me not the most important.