Shotokan Karate ninth degree black belt visits SVG

Chief Instructor and founder of the International Karate Daigaku (IKD) Frank Woon-A-Tai paid a visit to St Vincent and the Grenadines last week.{{more}}

Woon-A-Tai’s three day stay here had three-fold purpose, as he was part of the grading process which took place last Wednesday, and as head of the one-year-old IKD, was familiarising himself with the

St Vincent and the Grenadines chapter as well as introducing karatekas here to the new moves in the sport.

In explaining the new techniques being introduced, Woo-A-Tai told SEARCHLIGHT last week Wednesday afternoon at the Intermediate High School: “We are studying the new application of the kata, which is a fight against an imaginary opponent.”

Last week, Woon-A-Tai, who also oversaw the grading of close to seventy karatekas, said: “The standard is very good here; it is one of the larger and stronger organizations within the IKD.”

Woon-A-Tai, who last visited St. Vincent and the Grenadines thirty years ago, also observed that there has been growth in the sport since then.

“Back then you had about ten to twenty students, and Sensei Mark Cordice was the instructor, and we were all young.”

He was born in Guyana in 1950, but now resides in Canada.

Master Woon-A-Tai received his first degree black belt in 1971 from the Japan Karate Association in Tokyo, and his eighth degree black belt from Masters Okazaki and Yaguchi in 2008.

He served as first president of the Caribbean Karate College and as chief instructor of Jamaica from 1976 to 1980. He is founder and chief instructor of JKA/ISKF Guyana, and the Guyana Karate College.

Woon-A-Tai first gained international prominence when he won the Pan American kata championship in 1978.

Woon-A-Tai received a Medal of Service from the Guyana government in 2011.

Also part of Woon A- Tai swing through the Caribbean are visits to the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada and Suriname (RT)