Yass Go-Kan-Ryu Karate secures medals at national championships

A number of the members secured medal placings:

Sensei Chris Pothan and Tahlia Pothan also represented well in a tough field.

Greg Olsen, senior instructor at the club and regional manager for region 16 (which includes Canberra, Yass, Queanbeyan, Goulburn and Cooma), said the outcome puts the Yass club on the national map.

“They’ve won the Canberra inter-dojo competitions for the past two years. And then they qualified for national titles and nearly of all them secured medals,” Olsen said.

The Yass GKR dojo has been in operations for more than 10 years and Mr Olsen said the calibre of skills were high.

“At the national titles, we’ve always had competitors there – just that this year, we’ve never had as many. They also did well at the state level and then went onto nationals.”

He also praised the strong sporting culture in Yass, saying it was a contributing factor to the club’s success.

“At that national competition, there were about 450 competitors. The events were judged by umpires from all over Australia, so there’s no bias there,” he said.

“It essentially puts us on the map and will help us grow and achieve future goals.”

GKR is a traditional Japanese style of karate and was founded by Robert Sullivan in Adelaide in 1984. Sullivan began training in karate in 1964 before establishing GKR.