TASMA O'Brien, George Sayers, Jodie Vella and Jayden Webb were part of the Australian team who took part in the 50th All Star IKA Championships held in Los Angeles recently.
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About 200 other competitors from around the world took part in the event and the local students from the Te-Ashi Kai-Shin karate school put in some hard yards and many hours of extensive training during the week at their normal classes and further training on Saturdays and Sundays leading up to the tournament to prepare for the event.
A gold medal came in the early part of the tournament with Tasma O'Brien winning Open weapons division and fellow clubmate George Sayers coming third.
Tasma went on to come second in the Open kata against some really strong opposition, and also placed fifth in the International Gosokoryu senior division male/female.
This section was contested by martial artists from many other countries and had very highly ranked competitors.
Rewarded with second in kata and third in sparring was Jayden Webb, who was the youngest of the team.
Jodie Vella won the gold medal in the Women's intermediate kata division.
Prior to the tournament a dinner banquet was held in honour of Supreme Grand Master Takyuki Kubota, who was to celebrate his 80th birthday along with 75 years in martial arts training and the 50th IKA All Stars Championships.
Soke Kubota being a film celebrity himself had many guests, including Hollywood actor and Oscar winner James Caan, who has also trained under Soke Kubota.
Soke Kubota is extremely involved and in-demand in the US, he trains the Los Angeles Police Department in self defence and also trains the FBI in martial art techniques.
He has been commended on his work by past and present Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for his work as a martial artist and his assistants with law enforcement departments.
"It's a long way for students of Te-Ashi Kai-Shin karate school from Dubbo and Narromine to go to the USA, and coming home with such success was well worth the efforts of all," local instructor Hanshi Michael Ireland said.
Students from Brisbane also travelled and competed the LA championships.
Instructors from the US and all over the world were very complimentary and had much praise for the standard of the Australian Team.
The Te-Ashi kai-Shin team would like to thank all for the generous donations and support that has been given in order to help the team get the United States.
