In the 10 years Cochrane’s Ippon Karate Dojo has been operating, the club has made leaps and bounds in the world of national and international martial arts competitions.
The group has been doing their hometown proud in the past couple months, during which they’ve competed at the 41st annual Karate Canada National Championships (Jan. 29 to 31) and the 43rd Steveson International Championships (March 5), both held in Richmond, B.C.
“We sent six people to nationals this year,” said Ippon head instructor Adam Wackershauser “My wife was defending her national title, and we had a couple kids going for the first time to a competition of that level.”
One of the younger competitors – Ty Ngyuen – had recently moved up to the adult divisions, and was rewarded with a bronze medal in the male U21 individual kumite category.
“Ty was amazing,” Wackershauser said. “He had to fight a national champion twice in one day and beat him both times.”
Carter Dawood and Tim Hilliard were also part of Ippon contingent, but failed to medal at nationals.
They quickly remedied that however, when they took part in the Steveston Championships.
Hilliard managed to pick up three gold medals (two for kumite, one for kata) and two silvers (one kata, one kumite), while Dawood bagged one gold (kata), one silver (kata), and one bronze (kumite).
“It was a really good experience for those guys,” Wackershauser said. “I’ve been going to the Steveson for quite a few years now, and it’s a smaller event that helps people to get some wins under their belt and start building confidence.
“The majority of people we send to that tournament usually medal, we always have people from our club on the national team, from myself downward. This is a very competitive sport around the world, where there’s good calibre competition. We’re very happy with how we’ve done.”
While there is no direct map to why the club has been so successful, Wackershauser believes having a good group of people who constantly try and push each other to be better has done nothing but help club members. This has led to people from across the province as well as other countries coming to Ippon to train.
“We try to push people hard and constantly send them to the highest level of events,” he said. “We have to adapt and adjust as the martial arts sport itself evolves. Even though we’ve only been open 10 years, we have a couple generations of competitors who help out our young members.
“We’re one of the only clubs in the province with quite a few provincial team members, especially at the senior level, so that helps our program immensely.”
Anyone interested in finding out more about Ippon can visit www.cochranekarate.com
