The Tournament Connection

Justine like most women in the martial arts brings a grace in movement that men just cannot replicate. While training with her original Karate club she felt the need to find another outlet for her Karate.

Kata performance was one area of Karate she was unsurpassed within the club; therefore she decided to look into the Kata tournament circuit.

(For a more detailed account of her competitive career please refer to Justines’ profile in the WKK Instructors section of the web site.)

With many top three placements in a variety of open competitions, this inspired a number of students within the club to take up the challenge of Kata and Kumite within the competition format.

When the Whitstable Karate Kai began there were a number of teenage girls training in the classes, one of which was Justine's younger sister. Needless to say Justine was a bit of a heroine to these girls who in turn wanted to imitate her.

Justine worked hard putting together group creative kata routines for these girls to perform, at the various demonstrations Whitstable Karate Kai were invited to take part in. With the combination of Kata and the accompanying musical sound track, these routines would be used to finish the demonstrations giving the spectators a little more than just a Karate demonstration.

These demonstrations would in turn inspire the girls to want to compete, just as Justine had done before them. So once or twice a year the Whitstable Karate Kai would support local competitions, one of these being the Kent Open. 

Kata was an area the students excelled in due to theirs and Justine’s hard work. The results were very respectable with the girls often being placed in the top three.

In 2004 Justine's younger sister Danielle took part in the WUMA European championships and was placed second in the junior Japanese Kata section.

This would make Danielle eligible for the WUMA world championships in 2006 to be hosted in Malter. However this time Danielle would no longer be taking part as a junior but would have to move up into the senior section.

So it was a very pleasant surprise when she was narrowly beaten into second place by the then 3 times WUMA world champion.

Whitstable Karate Kai still makes provision for students wishing to take part in competition, by providing extra training sessions designed to prepare them for the competition arena.