Media Release

Mangalore, Jan 7: The 23rd state-level Inter dojo Karate Championship of Institute of Karate & Allied Arts of Mangalore was recently at Koragappa Memorial Hall, Gokarnanatheshwara Kshethra, Kudroli, here.

Institute of Karate & Allied Arts, founded by Kyoshi Praveen Kumar in 1989, has been organising Inter Dojo Karate Championship every year in different parts of the state. This year’s competition was hosted by the Mangalore BharatiyaVidyaBhavan and Ujjodi dojos.

Sensei Kishore B and Sensei Ganesh K jointly organized the above championship in which more than 900 participants from different parts of the state took part. The competition was held in various categories such as individual kata, individual kumite, team kata, weapon kata etc.

The championship was inaugurated by N Yogish Bhat, deputy speaker of Karnataka Legislative Assembly. Krishna Palemar MLA presided over the ceremony.

There were sub groups according to belt and age/weight. More than 160 sets of trophies were awarded to the winners. The competitions were held in eight tatamis or arenas simultaneously with more than 60 officials conducting the bouts without break.

The first place winners of black and brown belt individual kumite events had to participate in the final grand champion event to find the ultimate fighter of the year. Sharath Kumar of Udupi and Gladwin Fernandes of Mangalore won the titles in male and female categories respectively.

The overall championship which was awarded based on the total points scored by a dojo or club, went to the Bangalore team, who performed a hat-trick by winning this prestigious title for the third consecutive year.

The first runner-up went to Bhavana Jyothi Residential School, Shirthady, whereas the second runners up went to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan team of Mangalore.

In the closing ceremony, U T Khader MLA, Nagaraj Shetty, former minister and Sureshchandra Shetty, distributed prizes to the winners.