Sisters bound for Japan to improve their karate skills

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

WHEN you think of siblings in sport – particularly those outside the mainstream ones of GAA, rugby and soccer in Ireland – the likes of the Williams sisters in tennis, the Klitschkos in boxing, the Schumachers in motorsport and the Mannings in American football springs to mind.

In the world of karate, two Galway City sisters steadily gaining a great deal of recognition for their martial arts endeavours are Rebecca and Jessica Palmer from Coolough Road. Both fight out of West Karate Club.

Multiple title winner, Rebecca (19) is the current World Senior Women’s Kata champion while she was also on the Ireland U-21 ladies Kata team, along with Jessica (17), which secured gold at the World IJKA championships in Poland last Summer.

In any event, the formidable duo are highly regarded, so much so they have just been invited by the International Japan Karate Association (IJKA) in Tokyo to hone their skills along with to judge at an underage event at which they will also give a demonstration of their own techniques.

Although the invitation has come from World Chief Instructor for the IJKA, Sadashige Kato Shihan – who is now resident in England but has been teaching karate throughout the world for more than 40 years – it is believed the Galway girls will be working with new IJKA instructor, Utsumi Takato Sensei (5th dan) as he looks to build up his international contacts.

It’s all very exciting for the teenage duo who left this week and are not due home again until February 23. “It is a nice little break alright,” smiles Rebecca, who is a second year accountancy student at NUI Galway.

“We will be judging a competition for kids over there and we will also be demonstrating at that. We also have training ourselves. To be honest, it was a bit of a shock when the invitation arrived,” confesses the 19-year-old, who along with her sister, will also be joined by Cork’s Jean O’Connor on the trip.

One of the youngest 3rd dan belt holders in the country, Rebecca became a qualified instructor herself 12 months ago. Her sister Jessica is not too far behind herself in this respect; she is already a 2nd dan.

“Basically, the training I have done over the past couple of years has all built up to this,” says Jessica, a Leaving Cert student in Taylor’s Hill who is considering pursuing general science in NUIG but concedes her career choice path “is not set in stone.”

With the trip sponsored by the IJKA – although the cake sales and other fundraisers have had to be done to cover additional expenses – the sisters acknowledge it is an opportunity that they just could not possibility pass up on.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.