By KEVIN BERGER, Local Journalism Initiative
Around three years ago, Adrian Fisher joined the Kuro Tora Dojo in Warman alongside his eight-year-old son, both to get his son into sports and because he was shopping around for something to get involved in.
Though Fisher had done martial arts when he was a child — in fact, he had been about as old as his son at the time — the 48-year-old hadn’t done anything similar in the intervening years.
“It all just stuck. We’re both hooked,” he said.
Now an intermediate (green) belt, Fisher recently was part of a group of six Kuro Tora Dojo members who attended the World Martial Arts Championship in Ansberg, Germany on June 21-22.
In addition to Fisher, the group included Kleo Glover, Wolfgang Manicke, Liam Braaten, Jacob Roberts, and Gideon Lubago.
Participation in the World Championships was the result of these martial artists’ results from various other competitions, including tournaments hosted by the Kuro Tora Dojo.
“Each tournament that you go to and each event where you place in, it earns you a certain amount of points,” said Fisher, who actually won a national championship in points sparring.
All of the local martial artists achieved gold medals in their respective events except Gideon, who earned silver.
Fisher himself achieved a gold medal in kata (30-plus intermediate), second place in points sparring (30-plus intermediate) and third in weapons sparring (16-plus intermediate).
At the championship, Fisher indicated the competition was spread out over five or six rings. Beside martial arts, there were also kickboxing and regular boxing events, all of which drew many competitors and spectators.
“I can’t even venture a guess at how many hundreds of people went through there,” said Fisher. “At any given time, there would have been 200 people there.”
When the time to step into the ring came, Fisher said he was excited, having watched his competitors and studied how they moved.
“I was drawing on myself to really stay focused and analyze what they were doing, plan my strategy and all that,” he said.
Even kata, which consists of a series of solo movements, involves a degree of strategy, Fisher indicated.
“It’s in your delivery. Just like when you’re talking, and you … think about emphasizing a word, or slowing down on a specific phrase. Those are considerations that you’re doing when you’re moving, and breathing with the movement.”
However, learning he scored gold came as a bit of a shock, as Fisher said he had failed to match some of the movements he had rehearsed.
“I felt like I had made mistakes, but I think I covered that up well,” he said. “So yeah, there was an element of surprise. I thought I was good for third.”
Fisher thought he would do better in points sparring than kata, but he ended up going against an opponent who was “well above” anyone he had faced before in terms of speed.
“I just could’t use my (height) advantage like I would have hoped. But it was an amazing match in that sense,” he said.
In the points sparring event, Fisher noted one of his clubmates, a teenage Liam Braaten, had a much more dramatic match against an older competitor who many felt was rude to the referees and disrespectful of the rules. Liam won that match after three ties, Fisher said.
“It was one of those moments where everyone wants to see this guy lose, and then you see he gets tied three times in a row. It was actually kind of a heartstopper.”
Team Canada poses with their medals at the World Martial Arts Championship in Arnsberg, Germany.