West Island Karate / Karaté de L'Île is very proud to announce that Sensei John has earned his Godan.  He participated in last week's yudansha shinsa (black belt grading) which followed the 6th World Karate Championship in Weight Categories in Astana, Kazakhstan.  The grading took place at Burabay Lake in Kazakhstan and was overseen by Kancho Kenji Midori and several other high level Shihans of WKO Shinkyokushinkai.  In typically humble fashion, Sensei John wanted to keep it a secret until he had first shared the news with his students (whom he considers his extended family) at the dojo tonight.  This has been a very long time coming (he earned his Yondan in December of 2006...10 and a half years ago).  He has been training now for over 28 years, running his own dojo and teaching for the past 20 of those years.  As a Yondan, Sensei John made some personal sacrifices by becoming an independent dojo for five years before joining the WKO two years ago.  By becoming an independent dojo, he sacrificed his ability to be promoted in order to be able to freely train with others, regardless of organization, so that he could improve his own karate and pass on that newly garnered knowledge and experience to his students.  Sensei John has always put his students first so that he could help them achieve their goals.  So all of us at West Island Karate / Karaté de L'Île are beyond thrilled to see Sensei do something for himself and finally achieve one of his own personal goals.  The entire dojo is very happy and extremely proud of him for reaching this milestone.  Omedetou gozaimashita Shihan John (wow...that's going to take some getting used to for those of us who have been calling him Sensei for the past 10 to 20 years :-)).  OSU Shihan!  Click here and login to Facebook to see all of the photos from the grading (photos by WKO Shinkyokushinkai).

The 6th World Karate Championship in Weight Categories was contested in Astana, Kazakhstan.  There were 192 fighters in all consisting of 128 men and 64 women, with each gender divided into 4 weight categories (lightweight, middleweight, light-heavyweight and heavyweight).  Team Canada consisted of our own Sempai Kimm Carriere (accompanied by her trainer/coach Sensei John Kalaidopoulos), and Sempai Benoit Porlier and Sempai Yannick Reynaud of Heart & Soul Dojo.  Team Canada fought valiantly against some very tough competitors (Sempai Kimm's opponent went on to win her division), but in the end, were unable to advance past the first round.  Regardless they provided some hard-fought and closely contested matches, representing Canada with distinction, spirit and heart.  We are very proud of your performances and all of the hard work that you put in to compete at the world level Sempais.  Congratulations to all of you.  Omedetou gozaimashita!  Osu!  Click here and login to Facebook to see some photos from the tournament.

A long week grading Sensei's students of all ages and levels culminated with a yudansha shinsa (black belt grading) this afternoon.  Sensei John always maintains that a yudansha shinsa should be a particularly memorable experience for the candidates.  It is a time for honest self-evaluation and an opportunity to learn something about themselves.  At the end of it, they should have no doubts that they've pushed themselves to their absolute limit (and often beyond).  By that measure, West Island Karate/Karaté de L'Île's newest Shodan will have a LOT to remember and reflect upon after having all areas of her karate examined in great detail.  Congratulations to Sempai Meryem for successfully earning her Shodan!  Omedetou gozaimashita Meryem Sempai!  OSU!  It was a very stern test, but our newest Shodan turned in a memorable performance.  Everyone at WIK/KDL is very proud of you!  Well done!  A big thank you goes out to Sensei Luciano and Sensei Marisa, and their Sempais for coming out to support our candidates.  Your participation was much appreciated.  Osu!

Over the course of the first week of June, Sensei John held gradings for the kids and adults at all levels.  Sensei's gradings always test all aspects of his students' karate.  From physical fitness, to kihon (basics), idogeiko (moving basics), knowledge of Japanese terminology, kata, kumite (fighting) and perhaps most of all, Kyokushin spirit...EVERYTHING is examined in minute detail.  Sensei John makes no apologies for demanding the very best from his students, so passing a grading is never a given.  Indeed, perhaps the truest test of a student's humility and perseverance is how they deal with failure.  Being able to admit to themselves that their karate skills were lacking in some regard, training harder, and bouncing back is very much a part of the character building that is inherent to Kyokushin Karate training.  Having said that, the vast majority of the candidates acquitted themselves well.  Sensei was pleased to see demonstrable improvement from his students since their last grading.  Well done to all.  Osu!  Click here (and login to Facebook) to see photos of the beginner/intermediate kids grading and the advanced kids grading.  Click here to see pictures of the intermediate/advanced adult grading. 

The Yukan Karate Championship is generally the last tournament our dojo participates in before the summer.  Consequently a fairly large team represented West Island Karate / Karate de L'Ile in kata and semi-contact kumite.  The hard training that our students had been doing leading up to the tournament were evident in the results.  Everyone did a remarkable job.  Congratulations to all.  Osu!  Many thanks to Shihan Denis Cordiero and his volunteers for putting on another excellent tournament.

The 2017 West Island Karate Championship was the 16th edition of our annual tournament.  Sensei John decided to make this year's tournament a U14 event (open only to competitors under 14 years of age).  Sensei hopes to make this a first step towards the implementation of a new tournament system which prepares our younger students in stages for international-level competition.  By following the Japanese and European tournament models, young karateka can be gradually introduced to tournaments which require increasing levels of contact and intensity.  The purpose is to eventually narrow the wide gap which currently exists between the full contact and knockdown levels.  Consequently when the time comes for a student to make that jump, he/she will simply be moving up another smaller level, instead of being forced to make a huge leap that discourages our young fighters from competing at knockdown tournaments.  As always, the WIKC 2017 featured some high-level kata and kumite competition as all the dojos involved brought their best to compete.  Many thanks to all the competitors and all their parents and supporters.  A big thank you goes out to all the Sempais, Senseis and Shihans for donating their time to coach and/or help provide high-quality, professional refereeing to ensure the safety of all the competitors, something which is of paramount importance to all involved (especially to us at West Island Karate / Karaté de L'Île).  Finally Sensei would like to extend his greatest appreciation to all the volunteers from our dojo without whom the 2017 WIKC would not have been possible.  Due to scheduling conflicts this year, we were not able to access the venue to setup until 8 am on the day of the tournament!  But with a Herculean effort, we went from a completely vacant room to having a greeting table setup outside the entrance, 3 tatamis, 3 scoring/registration tables, all the necessary spectator seating in place, a roped-off competition area, a trophy holding/display area on the stage, an admin table which provided our custom Tournament System over WiFi (written by our own Sempai Steve...thanks Sempai) for our registration/scoring staff as well as everyone in attendance, a PA system, a fully-stocked canteen with free lunch for all our volunteers/refs, security staff to help direct the competitors and even provide plastic bags for everyone's winter boots.  It was a somewhat frantic (and stressful :-)) morning, but with everyone chipping-in wherever they could, we were up and running in less than an hour!  AND we still managed to start the tournament EXACTLY at 10 am...something we're VERY proud of (we always endeavor to respect everyone's time since you are making the effort to support our humble tournament).  So many many thanks to all our hard-working volunteers...domo arigato gozaimashita!  Click on the poster above and login to Facebook to see photos from the 2017 West Island Karate Championship courtesy of Julie Vuong (much appreciated Julie-san).  We were even paid a visit by Rhonda Massad of the West Island Blog who broadcast a live video from our tournament and wrote a very nice article about the West Island Karate Championship on her blog (thank you Rhonda).

Our 2017 Kagami Biraki (New Year's Training) was an excellent training and a fun way to kick off the new year.  With 119 karateka in attendance from various Kyokushin organizations and dojos, this was the largest Kagami Biraki yet.  All profits from our Kagami Biraki went to the members of Team Canada who will be participating at the 6th Shinkyokushinkai World Championship in weight categories in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 1-2, 2017.  At the end of the training, the Shihans and Senseis thanked everyone for supporting the Kagami Biraki and making it a great event.  In particular, Shihan Max and Sensei Luciano reiterated what all the instructors in attendance believed...this training was a great example of what we can accomplish when we all work together in the spirit of cooperation and openness (even though we may belong to different Kyokushin organizations).  It's obvious that training together, sharing knowledge and supporting each other benefits EVERYONE involved, in particular the STUDENTS - we were definitely the big winners today.  If today was any indication, 2017 is going to be a great year!  Happy New Year everyone!  On behalf of Sensei John, many thanks to our good friends Shihan Max, Shihan Hugo, Sensei Luciano and special guest, Sensei Robert Daoust, for so generously sharing their time, energy and knowledge with all of us.  Robert Sensei, please have a safe trip back to Japan.  Osu!  Click on the picture above and login to Facebook to see photos of the Kagami Biraki (courtesy of Julie Vuong...much appreciated Julie-san!).  Join our West Island Karate/Karaté de L'Île Facebook group today to get the very latest news regarding dojo events and to access exclusive content not available on our website.

Click here to read what happened at West Island Karate / Karaté De L'Île in 2016