MAGAZINE Karate College Clubs
SPRING 2025
FOCUS ON YOUR GOALS GOALS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
RECAP OF SPRING 2025
05
EDITORIAL STAYING TRUE TO YOUR GOALS
4
Spring 2025 Karate Infographic
6
January Black Belt Program Development
9
JKA Dan Exam Simulation
15
BU Tournament Terrier Cup 2025
ALTRUISM IN ACTION 13
Amandine Fromont Issuu Sponsorship - Digital Magazine
20 BU Earth Day
SEMINARS - BUILDING BRIDGES
15
SENSEI TABATA’S LEGACY BUSK HOST COLLEGE TOURNAMENT
19
Yale University Craig Sensei Judging Seminar
21
Jerry Sensei (JKA AF President) Karate Seminar
PROMOTIONS 7
JKA - Japan Karate Association
8
HDKI - Hombu Dojo Karate International
MORE THAN KARATE 11
14 18
16 16
MKHK VISITS COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Varak Mouradian - Chess Ewa Sitarska - Theater
Barkev Chaghlasian - Music
23
CONTACT US
24
READ OUR LATEST ISSUES
SPRING 2025
INFOGRAPHIC
1 1 1 2 22 25
SUSTAINABLE ACTIVITY BU EARTH DAY
SPECIAL KARATE TRIPS VISIT TO COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN NYC
KARATE TOURNAMENT BU TERRIER CUP SPECIAL KARATE SEMINARS
JERRY SENSEI BOSTON SEMINAR CRAIG ELKIN SENSEI JUDGING SEMINAR
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# OF KYU EXAM STUDENTS # OF DAN EXAM PREPARATION SEMINARS
Editorial
Staying Staying True True to to your your Goals Goals
In life, many people will set goals, but over time forget what their original goals were. When we don’t reflect, the goals sometimes drift, and we may find ourselves doing things that we think have stayed true to our original goals, but sometimes could even be the opposite of what the original goals aimed to achieve. For example, Tabata Sensei’s goal was to spread Karate at the college level, a mission that was entrusted to him by Isao Obata Sensei (a student of Gichin Funakoshi Sensei). He spent hours every week teaching at multiple universities and trying to build up the physical health, mental health and resilience, and social community at each university. His goal was not just to teach punching and kicking, but to teach students to have a mind that was open to new ideas, but resilient to be able to stay true to one’s own goals and ideals. Many people think Tabata Sensei’s goals were simply to punch a wall 1,000 times, or to do Karate training on a beach. His goal was to develop a mind resilient enough to be able to stay true to the goal, which was to spread the art of Shotokan Karate at the college level in the US. At the college level, students have exams, homework, social activities, and many other clubs and forms of exercise that compete for their time and attention. As an instructor, you can face days where student attendance may be low, or students are tired from lack of sleep or long bouts of studying and struggle with classes. It takes mental resilience to be able to handle these days and generate a productive lesson so that students leave training with something new, and look forward to the next training. Our advice in this magazine is for students to reflect on the goals they have set, be honest about their progress, and to make sure that the actions they plan and set forth to do properly align with the goals that they wish to achieve. Don’t try to trick yourself, as while people may not tell you to your face that you are not climbing the mountain of the goals you set, time will reveal the truth and you cannot hide from the truth.
-Vazrik & Cassiano
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January Black Belt Program Development In January 2025, we began a 6 month program to help students who would be taking their JKA black belt exam at the JKA AF Camp in New Orleans in June. The goal of this 6 month program would be to set a long-term plan that would be individualized for each student to refine their kihon, kata, and kumite technique to the level necessary for the exam. We had students preparing to take their Shodan for the first time, students preparing to take Nidan after having passed Shodan at one of the previous New Orleans camps, and also students taking instructor, judge, and examiner tests. While many might stress at the thought of a black belt exam, especially when preparation begins only a month before the test itself, we approach this mission by not only preparing students over the course of their training years, but also in a specialized black belt preparation program in this way. The program also includes several Dan exam simulations in February, April, and May so that students get used to the power, speed, and stamina requirements of the exam, as well as get used to performing under pressure in multiple simulations prior to the real test in June. We are excited for our students to put in the hard work, refine their technique with the provided feedback, and show their potential in the JKA AF camp in June! PAGE 06
JKA Kyu Promotion This spring 2025, we hosted official JKA kyu exams for our college and alum students. We are proud of the hard work our students put in throughout the semester in their training, and working hard to reach the next level in their Karate journey. We had 22 students in total that promoted this semester among our Harvard University, Boston University, Wellesley College Karate clubs as well as our alumni. Congratulations!
ALUMNI
HARVARD Kofi Dadzie
2nd kyu
Varak Mouradian
4th kyu
Myriam Kebtane
5th kyu
Peiqi Chen
5th kyu
Barkev Chaghlasian
6th kyu
BOSTON UNIVERSITY Magdalena Shirk
5th kyu
Benjamin Kissin
5th kyu
Olesya Kukhareva Oguz Yildirim
Xiangjia (Jessie) Chen Vaishnavi Vatsal Vikram Bhalla Alexis Griffis
5th kyu 5th kyu 5th kyu 5th kyu 5b kyu
6th kyu
Steven Dang
6th kyu
Kevin Jiang
6th kyu
WELLESLEY Kaavya Senthil
2nd kyu
Abby Brennan-Jones
2b kyu
Sage Widder Marelyn Gonzalez
3rd kyu 3rd kyu
Kailyn Lau
5th kyu
Srila Prathivadhi
7th kyu
Maria Rutter
7th kyu
PAGE 07
HDKI Kyu Promotion
PAGE 08
HOMBU DOJO KARATE INTERNATIONAL
Abby Brennan-Jones
3b kyu
Kaavya Senthil
3rd kyu
Sage Widder
4th kyu
Marelyn Gonzalez
4th kyu
Varak Mouradian
5th kyu
Kailyn Lau
6th kyu
Peiqi Chen
6th kyu
Magdalena Shirk
6th kyu
Olesya Kukhareva
6th kyu
Benjamin Kissin
6th kyu
Oguz Yildirim
6th kyu
Xiangjia (Jessie) Chen
6th kyu
Vaishnavi Vatsa
6th kyu
Vikram Bhalla Alexis Griffis
6b kyu 7th kyu
Steven Dang Kevin Jiang Barkev Chaghlasian Maria Rutter Srila Prathivadhi
7th kyu 7th kyu 7th kyu 7th kyu 7th kyu
JKA Dan JKA Dan Exam Exam Simulations Simulations As part of the preparation for the JKA AF Dan exams in New Orleans in June, we hosted several simulations for students to adapt to the exam itself. In our 6 month preparation program, we held 3 simulations beyond the typical training sessions meant to refine the kihon, kata, and kumite skills of our students. The simulations were exact implementations of the kihon, kata, and kumite of the Shodan, Nidan, and licensing examinations that our students were going to take in June 2025 at the JKA AF camp. Vazrik Sensei would conduct the exam and after completing the simulation for a student, he would give them feedback on the spot on their bottlenecks and what they were doing well vs what they needed to focus on to improve. He would even record the simulation for a student so that he could then go back over the recording and look for additional details that he could point out to the student in order to best explain what body mechanics needed to be focused on. The goal of these simulations was not only to identify areas of improvement for the students, but it was also to help them adapt to the stamina required to get through each portion. Students needed to get used to maintaining a strong spirit throughout the entire exam. Lastly, by repeating these simulations several times, the impact of one’s nerves on their performance becomes more manageable as the real Dan exam in June would be something they have already simulated several times and could then perform as needed under pressure.
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than e r o m
karate Our students do “More Than Karate”! Shotokan Karate is a deep passion for many of our students, but as many new beginners ask us when they join our Karate group, you can have multiple passions! Many of our students do multiple activities in addition to Karate. Throughout the magazine, we will highlight some of our members and you will have a chance to get to know more about them. PAGE 10
more
than
karate
USA
ARMENIA
VARAK MOURADIAN UMASS AMHERST
JKA 4TH KYU, HDKI 5TH KYU
KARATE AND CHESS
PAGE 11
U I S R M T L A
I
N
ACT
N IO
Karate is not just about punching and kicking. It is about developing a resilient mind, one that can achieve success both inside the dojo but also in one’s academic and professional career. One of the lessons we try to impart to our students is the power of altruism. Altruism is about paying it forward. It is about giving opportunities to people who otherwise would not have access to it. Throughout the magazine, we highlight a few examples of altruism in action that our students demonstrated around the world. We consider 3 ways in which people can offer help to others in the world: THROUGH TIME
THROUGH MONEY
THROUGH SKILLS
In the pages ahead, you will see examples of each one, but sometimes cases where a combination of time, money, and skills were offered to help people. The most important is that our students find a way to give back to their communities, and to empower people to pay it forward themselves to help the next generation and help make the world a better 12 place one act of kindness at a time. PAGE 12
THROUGH MONEY
N
I
Amandine Fromont Fromont funding Issuu Platform
TRUISM L A
A C TI O N
Today we want to highlight the altruism of one of our students, Amandine Fromont. Every semester, we publish a magazine of our college Karate activities as well as photo albums of JUKF visits to Boston or MHKH visits internationally. Beyond printing and mailing these magazines and photo albums to our Karate community friends around the world, we also publish these online for those interested to look back on these activities and follow the various events we help organize. Amandine has kindly funded the cost for this year to maintain our online presence and to fully subsidize the cost so that people can read our magazines online for free without having to pay for a subscription to do so. We are proud of Amandine’s altruistic donation, and we hope this inspires other students to find their own ways to give back to this community so that we can make a positive impact on as many Karate students as we can.
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more
than
karate
POLAND
EWA SITARSKA HARVARD UNIVERSITY
JKA 1ST KYU
KARATE AND THEATER
PAGE 14
Boston University Karate Club Hosts Spring 2025 Karate Tournament
Tabata Sensei’s Legacy
02/08/2025
For the first time since COVID, the Boston University Karate Club (BUSK) hosted a Terrier Cup Competition a college Karate tournament in the BU Fitness and Recreation Center on campus. The last time that the BUSK hosted a tournament was before COVID while Tabata Sensei was still alive. The BUSK Eboard worked hard to reserve gym space, meet with club sports officers for rules and logistics, and to advertise the event out to Karate clubs to come and join. There were Karate competitors from Boston University, Harvard University, Wellesley College, University of Connecticut, and University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Eboard not only helped to organize a successful tournament for university Karate competitors, but also competed themselves. We congratulate all of the competitors and organizers for a job well done in providing a safe, educational, and exciting Shotokan Karate tournament for students.
PAGE 15
MHKH Visit MHKH Visit to to Columbia University Columbia University
March 21 - 23, 2025
This spring, we had the special opportunity to organize a trip to New York City with our MHKH students. One of our Karate students, Qiu Yu Hong Lu, who graduated from Boston University a few years ago and did Karate at BU as well as served as president of the BU Karate Club, had moved recently to NYC to do her Masters at Columbia University. She had also begun training in the Columbia University Karate Club under Nachum Sensei. She helped organize an event where we brought Karate students from MIT, Harvard University, Boston University, Lesley University, and Wellesley College from Boston to join in a joint training at Columbia University as well as a tour of the campus. We got to enjoy not just training Karate with Nachum Sensei and the Columbia University Karate students, but an opportunity to spend time together and learn about what the Karate students do outside of the dojo. We also got to enjoy bonding time by sightseeing in NYC, and even got to reunite with Savannah Wu, who also graduated from BU and did Karate at BU before moving to NYC to do her Masters at Columbia University in architecture. PAGE 16
Karate Diplomacy At Columbia University we had our joint college karate training - The students come from 4 continents (Asia, America, Africa, and Europe) and 17 different countries.
USA
Armenia
Brazil
Mexico
Canada
Trinidad Tobago
France
Spain
Serbia
India
Bangladesh Hong Kong
China
Taiwan
Indonesia
Benin PAGE 17
more
than
karate
USA
ARMENIA
BARKEV CHAGHLASIAN MASSBAY COLLEGE
JKA 6TH KYU, HDKI 7TH KYU
KARATE AND MUSIC
PAGE 18
Yale University Yale University Karate Karate Sensei Craig Sensei Craig Elkin Elkin Hosts Hosts Judging Seminar Judging Seminar
3/16/2025
The Judge Seminar, led by Yale University Karate Sensei Craig Elkin, took place on March 16, Saturday, where our students had the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the judging process during tournaments. They were able to better comprehend the rules, signals, and vocabulary. The class was organized by Sensei Craig Elkin, the Chief Instructor at Yale University.
Craig Elkin Sensei
PAGE 19
Boston University Shotokan Karate honor of the Earth Day On the end of April BUSK helped clean up our neighborhood parks in honor of Earth Day! The Muddy River definitely lived up to its name— huge thanks to everyone who got their hands dirty for a great cause!
PAGE 20
Jerry Kattawar Jerry Kattawar Sensei Sensei (JKA AF (JKA AF President) President) Pre-Dan Exam Pre-Dan Exam Simulation Simulation
May 9 - 11, 2025
We had the pleasure this Spring 2025 of hosting Jerry Sensei here in Boston for a weekend of Karate training and sightseeing. As part of our black belt preparation program, we wanted to invite Jerry Sensei to come by and provide feedback to the students to help their growth, and to also allow students who have never trained with Jerry Sensei before in New Orleans an opportunity to learn from his decades of Karate knowledge and experience. We had Shodan level students preparing for their Nidan, 1st kyu students preparing for their Shodan, as well as kyu level students who wanted to see what black belt requirements look like. Jerry Sensei worked through the kihon, kata, and kumite requirements and provided individualized feedback for each student. Some key things we learned from Jerry Sensei included using the chamber portion of the movement to speed up technique for shuto uke in kihon, the importance of targeting in kumite and also the ability to stay more aligned in jiyu ippon kumite when dodging (tai sabaki), and how to use relaxation to speed up movements in kata, particularly ones that require changes in height such as the 1st move of Heian Shodan and the 1st move of Enpi.
PAGE 21
We also had the pleasure of enjoying sightseeing and time discussing with Jerry Sensei his perspectives on Karate, the JKA, and the future generation. We discussed what was the key goals he had for the JKA AF over the next few years such as for future camps, tournaments, and activities. In addition, we budgeted time to enjoy some things outside of Karate, such as golf. As a personal hobby for Jerry Sensei, we wanted to show him the scientific approach to golf that MIT takes, and had the pleasure of having a class with Mr. Joe Rocha. We got to see how Mr. Rocha utilized technology such as video recording and live feedback, as well as our personal favorite of the mini airplane attached to the golf club to show the various rotation axes of the club throughout a golf swing. While Cassiano and Vazrik were not golf players, the aspects of rotational body mechanics and technology utilization was inspiring for some of the ideas we have for Karate as well!
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CONNECT WITH US Vazrik Chiloyan vazrik@mit.edu
Anselmo Cassiano Alves anselmoc@mit.edu
Amandine Fromont afromont@wellesley.edu
Iyit Benusia ibenusia@lesley.edu
Nikita Patil patilnp@utexas.edu
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