Mature-aged karate students from Doonside “easily” take competition
Doonside Karate Kancho Warren John is proud of his newest and oldest recruits after they won open tournaments recently.
The Standard
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When mature-aged karate students Michael “Mick” Flanagan, 58, and Stephen Chamberlain, 49, walked into the International Sport Karate Association Australia NSW open tournament they were not expecting to leave as winners.
But after defeating much younger opponents in separate full-contact continuous sparring events in Liverpool in March, they made their chief instructor Kancho Warren John a happy man.
“I’m really proud of them because they are the oldest people in their groups and they took out the competitors like they were nothing,” John said.
“They took on their competitors the same way the competitors came at them. The competitors were between 30 and 42 years old.”
Flanagan had been a long time friend of John’s when he asked about learning karate.
“It’s always been something I’ve wanted to do, but I was always too shy,” Flanagan said.
“I took it up for peace of mind and structure of mind.”
After just six months of intense training at least three times a week, Flanagan even progressed from white belt to blue belt in 10 weeks.
“If you want to be the best at something you have to live it,” he said.
Chamberlain had been practising karate for 17 years when his son began training under John.
“He was telling Warren (John) about me and then Warren (John) wanted me to come down and do a session with him,” he said.
A year later, Chamberlain is now a second-degree black belt and teaching his kids as well as other beginners at John’s Universal Karate Do in Doonside.
“Once martial arts is in your blood it’s there forever,” Chamberlain said.
“It’s like a dream come true for me. I always wanted to be an instructor.”
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