Teenage trio getting their kicks from love of karate

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

Three Galway teenagers from West Karate Club are to represent Ireland at the World Karate Championships in Bulgaria in July and, according to their chief instructor, their involvement in the prestigious international event marks a major milestone for the club.

Johnathan Larder (19), Rebecca Palmer (18) and Craig Dempsey (19) have been selected to participate in the Championships in Bulgaria and their proud chief instructor and mentor Brendan O’Flaherty says this is a significant achievement for a club that was only set up in September 2009. Prior to that, O’Flaherty and the trio worked out of another dojo.

O’Flaherty says West Karate Club started from “very humble beginnings” four years ago but from catering for between 15 to 20 students, it now boasts of 60 plus students in the club today.

“Our club really has gone from strength to strength,” continues the Claddagh native, who has been practising karate for 27 years. “When we go to a competition, we never think about winning or losing. We just think about competing. I always maintain that if you can do your best – regardless of the outcome – your best should always be good enough. You can’t ask for anymore. We are very lucky as well that we have got a lot of great kids in. They are very talented.”

Of course, the three by his side – Larder, Palmer and Dempsey – are the pick of the bunch. Both Larder and Palmer are Second Dan black belts, while Dempsey is expected to graduate to that grade in 2014.

“They are very young but their grades are very high,” says their coach. “What we do in our club is we don’t put pressure on people. We never, ever put pressure on people. If you want to go to a competition, you are welcome to come. If you are going to a competition, though, we tell our students to forget about winning. Just go and enjoy it. Perform to the best of your ability.”

Certainly, this approach has worked, with West Karate Club dominating the team kata event in their age group in the country for the last decade while Larder, Palmer and Dempsey have also claimed All-Ireland senior kata honours.

At the moment, the youngest in the club is just five while the oldest would be in their early 20s, although the club does run a class for more mature people – those who may have been engaged in a sport some years ago and are now looking for something to fill the void – on Saturday afternoons.

This is just one initiative the club has explored. Another has been the introduction of wheelchair karate in 2011. This has proved to be very successful and, indeed, among those to bring honour and glory to the club have been Dylan McLoughlin, Stephen Timothy and Shane Curran, who all have claimed victories at the Irish Open Shotokan Championships.

All these classes make for a busy schedule, with the wheelchair users training on Tuesdays (6.30pm to 7.30pm) at Ballybane Community Centre and the rest attending classes on Fridays (6.30pm to 7.30pm and 7.30 to 9.30pm) and Saturdays (11.30am to 1pm and 1.30pm to 3pm) at the Connacht Hotel.

One of those classes O’Flaherty enjoys is the 6.30pm on Friday when he puts the five to eight year olds through their paces. “I have already graded them and they are there every Friday. If we can hold onto them, they will be good,” he beams.

Meanwhile, O’Flaherty explains the prospect of Larder, Palmer and Dempsey heading to the World Championship was first touted by Irish chief instructor, Brian Twomey, at a competition in Kilkenny earlier in the year.

“We had won the team event and he came over to us and said to us ‘you have to start to take these competitions seriously if you are going to go to the World Championships’. Sure, all we started to do was laugh,” recalls O’Flaherty, dismissing the suggestion at the time.

“However, we then went to the All-Irelands and we won the team kata – we won it by a mile. So, he came to us again and said ‘look it, you are picked for the (World) Championships, you have to go’. So, we said ‘fair enough’. If the chief instructor thinks we are good enough to go, then why shouldn’t we?”

Since then, the trio have trained almost every day – sometimes twice or three times in the day – and have made adjustments in all areas of their lives, including nutrition.

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