By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
Although they had minimal time to practice their form, local karate students still earned third place in a national karate competition earlier this month. Due to coronavirus restrictions, the three students recorded a segment for the Amateur Athletic Union’s Virtual Karate Nationals instead of attending the competition personally.
The Sitka dojo, Kenwa Karate, is generally a recreational facility, but the digital nature of the national competition this year gave Liam Laybourn, Rianna Bergman and Nolan Noel a chance to compete in the 15-17 team kata (form) division, Sensei Laurinda Marcello told the Sentinel on Friday.
“We’re more of a recreational dojo – most of the time we don’t compete with a lot of kids. I saw the opportunity to do nationals this year because it was virtual,” Marcello said.
In a year filled with canceled athletic events and disappointed athletes, she said this event was a rare bright spot.
“It’s really cool that it enabled us to go to nationals without traveling,” she said. Local karate students have not had a chance to go to nationals as a team since 2009.
The Sitka dojo has been shut for months out of worries about the pandemic, and Marcello said her students have had limited opportunities for practice.
“It’s quite special that these three earned medals in team kata. They filmed this during a brief period where we held in-person advanced class between closures. The students only had a couple weeks to practice with one another to meet the deadline, and did really well with synchronization,” she said.
The trio chose a kata called “Rohai,” which Marcello said emphasizes grabbing techniques.
Bergman and Noel have previously competed on the regional level, their teacher said, but they have never competed nationally. For Laybourn, the virtual nationals were his first. The students were somewhat younger than their age category would indicate as well. Bergman is 15, while Noel is 13. Laybourn was 12 at the time of filming.
The group filmed their karate in October, but didn’t receive results until this month. The video is public on YouTube on the AAU Karate channel.
During the summer, the students had a chance to learn only in private lessons, and Marcello would like to return to group instruction in the coming year.
“We’ve just been doing some private stuff over the summer,” she said and she hopes to resume traditional in-person classes over the coming summer.
