Lake Jackson Texas, located just minutes from Surfside Beach south of Galveston Texas is the home of a thriving martial arts community. One of its greatest champions and legendary martial artist Willie Galvan produced his fifth AOK and SKIL AA rated and biggest tournament to date. Large divisions were quickly ran and completed with the help of other Texas NBL and AOK officials. Willies brother, George Galvan is also a sport karate champion and was there to add prestige to the proceedings. Saturday August 20th was beautiful and hot, fortunately the Lake Jackson Civic Center management like the cold and some people had to wear sweaters to keep warm.
Highlights of the black belt divisions included large weapons and forms divisions culminating in the forms grand championships. Chris Pandolph, Cassie Hendon, Andrew Carrosco, Margaret Beasley and David Johnson ran off for the championship belt. A close score between Andrew Carrasco and David Johnson had David Johnson Winning by a close victory in what turned out to be a great show of talent.
In the women’s 45 and over sparring Margaret Beasley was the champion. Women’s 32 and over had Chris Pandolph and Stacy Patters vying for first with Stacy ending up the champ. The 18 and over women’s sparring came down to a contest between Marthia Garcia and Cassie Hendon both fought hard and had the crowed roaring for their champion with Cassie edging out Martha and winning in what turned out to be a great sparring contest.
Men’s sparring was no less intense and had fighters coming from all over Texas to compete. Normon Roberts won 45 and over Heavy Weight sparring. Barry Benton Donald Lawson and Johnnie Murphy were the 45 plus light weight fighters with Donald Lawson Showing the dexterity of someone half his age and winning in a close fight with Barry Benton. The 35 plus light weight men’s group was the largest division I’ve seen in some time, with Tracy Anderson, Wayne Nugyen, Anderson Chaplaia, Anselio D’lastilho, Manuel Serrano, Mike Polono and Charles Shed mixing it up to see who was the man. Tracy Anderson pulled out the top spot and went on to the sparring grand.
Jason Holmes “Jay Dawg” from California beat Mike Garcia to win the mens light weight sparring division. Next came the men’s middle weight division with Bear Loebe and Andrew Carrasco battling it out, both are the premier Texas champions. Andrew Carrasco pulled past Bear to win, in what was a classic tactical contest. Heavy weight men’s sparring pitted Big Tim Gregory against Courtney Allen. Both fighters got it on and looked light weights exchanging techniques. Courtney Allen pulled ahead of Tim and ended up the champion.
The men’s and women’s sparring grand’s finalized the tournament with women up first. Margaret Beasley and Cassie Hendon competed for the belt with Cassie ending up the women’s sparring champion.
The men’s sparring grand championship was a contest between Jason Holmes of California, Norman Roberts of Houston and Tracy Anderson from Dallas. First up was Jason Holmes and Tracy Anderson. The two fighters are totally different styles and ages. This lent an unusual flavor to the contest as Tracy launched unorthodox blitzes at Jason. Jason countered with tactical counter fight techniques and quick forward back fist blitzes. This went on the whole two minutes and ended up with Jason Holmes pulling ahead and winning the first men’s grand championship fight. Next up was Normon Roberts against Jason Holmes and again two totally different styles and ages. This time Jason’s back fist blitzes were not effective due to Norman’s quick lunging roundhouse and side kicks. Jason made adjustments and started using his feet but before he could mount an effective series of blitzes time ran out leaving Norman Roberts the 2005 Ultimate Pro-Am men’s sparring Grand Champion.
