KUCHING: Six months ago, a Kuching karate training centre was set up by the Sarawak State Sports Council (MSNS) and most of the members were from tang soo do. Come Sarawak Game s (Suksar) in Dec 14-17, they will be getting their first experience in high level competitions against the team from Miri who have been training for nine years or so. MSNS karate coach Clarence Leong, said with the Suksar competition, it has given rise to a new ball game in the unprecedented development of the sport in Sarawak.
“Never mind that those in Kuching have only six months compared to the much exposed, nine years or so behind them of the Miri players. More importantly is for the sport to be further developed and the athletes to be exposed to competitions.
“The concept of Suksar has set the base for karate to widen. “The Games have given exposure and development for the new talents from the southern zone while the Miri are seasoned competitors. “Even if our club members whom I trained lose, it will give rise to producing a better team for the next Sukma in years to come,” said Leong.
The coach of the Kuching karate club whose son, based in Pahang, is a national karate champion, said those under his charge are still inexperienced. He will try to drill into his charges to focus on the rules of the game like scoring, then the criteria of scoring for example like good timing, good distance and good sportsmanship known as Zanchin in Japanese which is the awareness of the situation.
“They must take care of the surroundings like, for example, when the referee said stop, the other competitors may not hear it so they must be aware of that to make sure they do not receive blows as it is the nature of a combat sport.
For the karate competitions, three zones will be competing – the Southern Zone consisting of Kuching, Samarahan and Serian, the Central Zone consisting of Sibu, Mukah and the Northern Zone of Miri, Bintulu and Limbang while they will not accept any team from the western zone of Sri Aman, Betong and Sarikei as the sport did not exist there. Leong, who is also in charge of technical organising chairman of SukSar, said because the Southern Zone is the hosts, they will put up a team.
Whether they win the medals or not is immaterial as raising the standard of karate in the state is of primary importance.
