Grand Champions of the Summer 2011

On Oct. 27, the Academy of Kempo Martial Arts held a special awards ceremony for its ninth annual Champion of the Week Tournament.

The tournament was an eight-week program that started on July 16 and ended Sept. 10 where competitors demonstrated their self-defense concepts within their sparring techniques.

This tournament was designed for the students to be able to break the barrier between the sport end of the martial arts and reality. However, any competition that has rules or regulations is not true reality, but, this type of sparring helps the students get closer to reality without injuries.

The competitors sparred each other in a weekly tournament class; within this tournament class, the competitor had to successfully carry out that weeks’ self-defense concept. At the end of each tournament class there was one Champion for that week. That Champion was awarded a trophy for being that weeks’ tournament Champion, but to be able to keep the title of Champion and the trophy, the competitor had to successfully defend hisher title at the following weeks’ tournament class.

At the end of the eight weeks, the person who won the most Championship bouts was honored with the title of Grand Champion of the Summer 2011.

There were two divisions, the children’s division and the beginner adults/junior adults division. In the children’s division: Jonathan Brown and Tyler Brown (both from Hamden) were one time Champions. Gabriel Ciarleglio (from Hamden) was a five time Champion, earning him the title of Grand Champion of the Summer 2011.

In the beginner adults and junior adults division, Ziael Aponte (from New Haven) was two time Champion, Ben Hawkins  (from Hamden) was one time Champion and Cazimir Bzdyra (from West Hartford) was five time Champion, earning him the title of Grand Champion of the Summer 2011.

During any competition, winning is truly measured by how much someone learns from the experience as in any life lesson. Congratulations to all who participated and became better for it.

More pictures and information on the concepts used in this tournament can be found at www.academyofkempo.com. To contact the Academy of Kempo Martial Arts, call 203 288-9990.