2006 Space City Open Karate Championships

Texas has a lot of secrets, everything from buried pirate treasure to ancient civilizations. Time and time again another new discovery is made that astounds the world. Not really, but it does have every type of topography that exists, mountains, beaches, deserts, swamps, forests, cold weather and some of the hottest places in the world. If you took Texas and flipped it one way, it would touch the Atlantic Ocean, if you flipped it the other way it would touch the Pacific Ocean and it’s almost one thousand miles from end to end. It takes two hours to fly in a jet from Beaumont to El Paso and its bigger than the country of France. There are places here that no human has traveled in centuries and possibly ever.

One of the greatest places in Texas is Houston and one of the best things about Houston Texas is that it has a population that represents every nationality there is, as a result the martial arts community is widely represented. Some of the best martial artist in the world reside here.

Linda Denley is one of those modern icons of the Texas sport karate culture that has evolved in the last forty years. Her accomplishments are legendary. Starting in the early 1970’s she evolved into one of the best women fighters ever and by the end of the 1980’s she was on the prestigious Trans-World Oil Karate Team. She has won every world title from most of the karate organizations that existed from the 1970’s to the early 1990’s.

Linda is the producer of the Space City Open Karate Championships and has for the last 24 years provided one of the top Texas tournaments with competitors coming from across the state for her competition. April 8th 2006 was a beautiful day. I don’t remember a bad day for this tournament since I first attended in 1992. Its always sunny and miraculously warm. Kleb Intermediate School , located two minutes from my house in northwest Houston was the tournament location. By the way, I did sleep late….and arrive on time with a smile on my face… so there. Texas AOK tournaments are always well attended because it has strong support from big schools. At least 250 competitors were in attendance with an overall crowed of 500 or more including grandmas.

As customary with most tournaments forms, specialty and weapons were up first. Terese Pandolph won black belt adult musical/specialty forms. Johnnie Murphy, yours truly won black belt 35 plus specialty, 45 plus forms and adult black belt weapons with a super duper sword form. Andrew Carrasco, recovering from landing on his head earlier in the week in practice, managed to win in men’s adult black belt forms. White Ninja Wayne Nguyen took the other old guy’s for a ride and won 35 plus forms. Cassie Hendon was first in women’s forms and Courtney Allen won adult black belt self defense.

Team AGMA, consisting of Kyle McLean and Steven Smith, both students of Al Garza ran a great form to win team forms. Kyle McLean also won Junior black belt specialty/musical forms and 14-15 forms. Evelyn Mattes won 10-11 forms and other junior black belt forms champions were Brian O’Grady 12-13 forms, and Steve Smith 16-17 forms.

Black belt junior forms proceeded directly after forms divisions concluded. Top junior fighters from east Texas and Louisiana were present to enhance the level of competition. Daniel Polomo and Joshua Vullejo were champions of the boys and girls 12 – 13 sparring. In one of the most outstanding divisions Garett Lee was victorious in a final match with James Davidson concluding in a hard fight to win the boys 14 -15 sparring division. Charlie Davidson, James Davidson’s older brother and Lostin Smith were the final combatants in a division that can only be described as a war. The lead went back and forth until after a tie breaker Lostin Smith was victorious.

Men’s fighting dominated the competitions attention. As usual there was the customary rituals of preparation by all competitors and after a roll call and line they were at it. Vanrick Batiste pulled out a win in the men’s middle weight division over last years Golden Greek champion, Andrew Carrasco. Jacobe Gilder was the men’s light weight champion. Chris Price of Beaumont won the men’s heavy weight sparring.

In the executive sparring divisions, Manual Serrano and Wayne Nguyen skillfully went at it in the 35+ light weight division. After a very tactical fight Manual Serrano was victorious over Wayne. D.E. Chambers was first in the 35+ heavy weight division and Barry Benton took the 45+ men’s point sparring division.