As our students are preparing for our National Karate Intramural Tournament this week, we are also sending two of our Instructors and three students to martial arts World Championships!
Ms. Tohtz will be defending her World Champion Title from 2015
Enzo, Micah, Mr. Dingmann (twice), Miles & Micah again.
WKC World Championships
Alex Dingmann and three students, Enzo Lucatorto, Miles Bates and Micah Bates have qualified for TEAM USA and are going to the WKC World Championships in Orlando, Florida. (Last year it was held in Dublin, Ireland) Miles Bates has been there before when he took the Bronze Medal in 2015. Alex Dingmann, is our National Karate Team Captain and the Associate Director at our Bartlett school. Throughout his competition career, Alex has won over 40 Grand Championship awards. He has competed in the World Championships in Dublin, Ireland 3 times, and one he year made it to the Gold Medal round and took the Silver!
WAKO World Championships
Another National Karate Chicago Instructor, Jenn Tohtz is headed to the WAKO World Championships in Budapest, Hungary! The WAKO World Championships is held every two years and Ms. Tohtz is the defending World Champion from 2015. She will be defending here World Champion title.
WKC and WAKO are two different World Championship sanctioning bodies. Just like boxing has different sanctioning bodies, so does Karate/Kickboxing. Both sanctioning bodies invite all martial arts styles to compete with the best.
Where It All Began…
Most of these highly rated Instructors and students cut their teeth on our NK Intramural Tournament. Our vision for our Intramural Tournament has always been to give our students a fun introductory competition experience in sport karate. We make sure that the divisions are fair by dividing the competition by age, belt rank and size to ensure an “even playing field” and making a fun and user friendly competition event. What we find, is that the students who enjoy our intramural will then check out the next level of competition by trying other “Open” tournaments in our area or even our Diamond Nationals open tournament in MN.
No other single martial arts school in America has produced as many world rated competitors as the National Karate Schools.
Over the years, the NK schools have produced some of the finest martial artists in the country. They have produced World Champions in nearly every arena of competition including professional Kickboxing and Sport Karate tournaments (in both Forms and Sparring). It is often said that a student could walk into any major martial arts tournament or championship in the United States and the competitors and promoters will know about the National Karate Schools. That name recognition has been earned by 44 years of producing champions.
That tradition of top fighters and form competitors continues today with dozens of NK Black Belts holding top World Rankings and Championships. Although most students do not desire to be world-class competitors, it is nice to know that the training they are receiving is of world-class quality.
