Shodan Karen Stone’s and Nidan Ben Cunningham’s NAS Titles are not simply testimony to their hard hours of training, they are the fruit of a fervent self-belief and dogged determination. The NAS trophy and title belt may be a new addition to Karen’s collection, but for Ben, it’s the second title he’s won in as many years.

Perhaps Ben wore out his 2004 NAS Men’s Champion title belt, because he’s fought long and hard for another one. Asked why he won a back-to-back title, “I wanted another one,” is Ben’s decisive answer. “My coach, Sensei Anthony Ryan, has won the GKR [Go-Kan-Ryu] World Titles three times in a row, and that had never been done in the history of GKR. And [with] him doing that, I’ve been training with him and talking with him a lot more about how with my mindset and my own belief I could win the double and can win this year as well.”

Ben is certainly not one to give up easily. He won’t stop until he’s either reached his goal or far exceeded it. Ben won the 2004 NSW State Title in Men’s Open Kumite just three weeks after abdominal surgery to remove his appendix. Apart from his successes rising through the ranks of NAS, Ben also won in kumite and came second in kata in the Colts division at the 2003 GKR world cup in Birmingham, England. But even when Ben loses, he merely sees it as an opportunity to learn and better himself.

This year, Ben faced even tougher competition, with every opponent seeing it as their personal duty to dethrone the reigning champion. “It was a lot harder this year,” Ben says. “But I just knew I had to get a lot faster and I knew that I just had to believe a lot more. I knew it was going to be a lot harder and I just wanted it.”

Ben started Go-Kan-Ryu karate in 1995 when his parents decided it would be a good way for Ben and his brother to exercise while learning discipline and respect. Six years later, Ben was on the GKR NSW State Team and he began his journey with NAS. He wanted to take what he’d learnt, test it against the best exponents of other styles and strengthen his skill-base. NAS allowed Ben to pick up valuable tips and techniques throughout the year in an environment of artistic exchange.

To a great degree, Ben attributes both his wins to the enormous swell of support behind him in the GKR NSW State Team. “Being on the NSW state team for the last four years, it’s really one big, close-knit family and the support of everybody is unbelievable, it’s second to none. I wouldn’t change any of it at all. At the Champion of Champions fight, you could hear them cheering.”

Ben works five days a week as a health and fitness instructor. In addition to this, he works into the wee hours doing security at a Newcastle nightclub on Friday and Saturday nights. Add to this Ben’s five days of karate training, including one session that’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive away in Sydney, as well his program of swimming, running and pre-sunrise gym workouts (an hour after he’s finished at the club) and it becomes clear how much hard work it takes to become the NAS Champion, two years running. “I also ride to work,” he adds. “Soccer season’s coming up soon, so I’m going to be playing soccer.”

In the last year, Ben has also tried his hand at full-contact karate, fighting alongside GKR buddy Craig Lennox. “I went into the IFKKA Australian Open Championships. It was the first time since 1999 that I’ve been in a full-contact tournament and I got third place. It opened my eyes,” he continues. “Craig was in middleweight and I went in the lightweight [division]. It really tested the ability to get in and score points with people hitting you back. It was full-contact kicks to the head, no punches to the head and full-contact to the body, all the way down to the legs.”

This is as distinct to NAS, in which fighters are required to exercise complete control over their techniques, but Ben feels there is a definite crossover. “It helped my ability in point-sparring, just with the different ways the body moves and the ability to throw techniques from every possible position. You might be on the retreat and then boom, set your stance and throw a punch. It’s exactly the same as a non-contact tournament.”

Now Ben is going for the NAS hat-trick while also focusing on the WASO (World All Styles Organisation) Championship. Ben started training for the WASO as soon as he finished with the NAS titles. “[I was] training in weights, going upstairs and training in karate and footwork drills, also bungee cords for resistance training, as well as swimming and bike riding. Just heaps of cardio stuff.”

Although NAS competition often seems to be dominated by karate-trained fighters — the last seven years’ champions have all been karate-ka — Ben feels that every opponent he’s faced, even those from non-karate-based styles, have been worthy. “They all have their own moves, their own skills, their own pace. The karate-oriented styles are harder to beat, some of the fancy-kicking styles are a little easier.” Easier perhaps, but not by any means easy. “NAS really tests every single martial artist,” Ben asserts.

Ben attributes the success of the karate-based styles, and his own Go-Kan-Ryu, to a philosophy of drilling basics, over and over, until they’re perfected. “Trying to get a hundredth of a second faster on each punch, each block and each kick and in footwork drills,” as Ben explains, is often the aim of his karate training.

Another reason for karate’s success could be many styles’ emphasis on a balance between tried and tested hand and foot strikes, keeping fancy aerial techniques off the mat. This, however, may be about to change. The current balance of power between the competing arts at NAS could shift with the introduction of NAS Extreme rules in 2006. Three points will now be awarded for difficult techniques such as spinning back-kicks and jumping kicks, and two points will be awarded for a takedown and follow-up technique. This new incentive for attempting more complex techniques could encourage arts more familiar with such moves to score in that way. “They’re more disciplined and better trained in those areas, but in the normal points-fighting, you see them struggling a little because points are mainly fists; it’s normally a small number of points scored with the spinning and jumping kicks. But as long as they pull it off correctly, with the proper technique, they should do well.”

However, Ben doesn’t feel that the new rules will affect him as a fighter. “I’ll still be the same,” he confirms. But he may be more inclined to attempt takedowns. “I would look at that, because I’m actually teaching little kids at the gym point-sparring and takedowns and jiujitsu.”

Ben’s personal skill level and fighting style have come a long way since he last won NAS. “I have a little bit of a new repertoire, but the belief — the inner belief — has become a lot stronger, and my kata, I’ve been training it. I’ve been able to calm down, take one point at a time and I’ve become a lot stronger, faster and healthier.” He’s shaping up for a third consecutive win — a first in NAS competition — and he has a few words of advice for anyone wishing to follow in his wake: “Find someone who has been a champion, or who is in your eyes, a champion, and learn from them. Try to get faster and faster with your own ability. Just keep training and keep believing.”

2005 Women’s Champion of Champions, Karen Stone
By the time Karen Stone found herself in the Champion of Champions round, she knew she could walk away with the title — she’d already beaten her opponent earlier in the day. “It’s something I’ve been working toward for a while,” says Karen. In 2003 she came second in the Middleweight division and first in 2004, but missed out on the Champion of Champions. However, in 2005, Karen came away with Middleweight, Openweight and Champion of Champions titles. In the lead-up to the final fight, Karen came up against tough fighters. “Seeing as I lost my first fights in the fight-off against the Lightweight Champion and Middleweight, that was a bit of a setback. But then I got a second chance because I’d won the Open-weight as well.”

Fighting against all the other styles at NAS was initially a challenge for Karen. “It can be tough when you come up against a kung fu person or someone from another style who fights a little differently to you,” she explains. Karen’s solution to being unfamiliar with her opponent’s art is simple: “I try not to focus too much on what they’re doing — for example, if they try to put you off with a different guard — and just make sure I continue to fight the way I fight. I also like to watch people fighting in earlier rounds so I know what to expect.”

Karen has been studying karate for a couple of months short of a decade. She is now Shodan and also a corporate tax consultant at one of the big four accounting firms. Karen also finds time for running, swimming and cycling to condition herself for mini-triathlons. “I also try to do some yoga and things like Pilates for stretching.” Karen trains about four times a week in Seishin Zenryoku Karate at Redlands Martial Arts Academy in Cleveland, about 40 minutes out of Brisbane. In the lead-up to competition, she does three mornings a week on the bag at home. “Other mornings I do running, riding or swimming,” Karen says. “So I generally do something every single day.”

As a fighter, Karen’s methods are quite traditional — well-executed, linear techniques — and stem directly from the Shotokan base of her style, Seishin Zenryoku. “Our instructor, Sensei Shane Degney, trained under Shihan Michael Ireland from Dubbo. We do all the Shotokan kata and Shotokan basics, but we’ve also borrowed some techniques from other styles in terms of our self-defence.” If Karen’s opponent shows a preference for leg-attacks, she likes to defend and counter-attack, while if she notices that her opponent prefers to use their hands, she will go in to score. “In that sense, I suppose I like to fight straight-line, but if someone’s using their legs, then I might use sabaki [body-shifting] and move around them,” Karen pauses. “We do train for that, but it’s a little more difficult to execute.”

Shotokan karate is often regarded as having more of an emphasis on power and length and not enough on speed of execution. Many would argue that Shotokan-based styles are not as efficient on the mat as others that focus more on speed. So how was Karen so successful? “We did a lot of competitions before we joined the NAS,” she explains. Before Karen’s club joined NAS in 2002, they had a long history of competing in other tournaments. “I guess [they were] a lot harder in terms of contact. We did some continuous sparring and point-sparring. They’re a lot more strict on contact in the NAS and the bouts are all really fast.” In order to account for these differences, Seishin Zenryoku held modified, non-contact training sessions to adapt their style.

Karen also feels that the special attention Seishin Zenryoku Karate paid to drilling simple, effective techniques contributed greatly to her win. “I score a lot with the jabs, the reverse-punches — I guess that’s a very Shotokan-style technique — just that directness, getting in the right direction and using that one technique.” Karen’s favourite moves are therefore the linear ones. “Gyaku-tsuki [reverse-punch]; I think that’s what I score with the most. I really love doing the mae-geri [front-kick], but often it’s a bit difficult to do with the control,” she says. “At NAS, you have to be really careful with your control. If you go too hard, you’ll be warned and may lose points.”

Learning to negotiate and overcome so many other styles at NAS was bound to have an influence on Karen’s style. She has certainly noticed some changes: “I think I’ve probably developed more control and speed because of fighting at NAS,” she says.

Many fighters have to adapt to NAS’s strict requirements on contact. Karen has had the full range of karate tournament experience and has even participated in Koshiki fighting, which involves body-armour and helmets. “Koshiki means ‘hard-contact’ fighting,” Karen says. “But it’s pretty much full-contact in terms of the target areas, which are the chest-protector and the head-protector.” Karen made a trip to New Zealand to fight in one of these tournaments in September last year. “I won there and I won the State Titles in Queensland as well. I missed out on the Nationals, but hopefully I’m going to the World Titles, in Canada, in May.”

With her focus on full-contact fighting, Karen is working out how to train for non-contact at the same time. “We do full-contact training and then we do non-contact training. Depending on which tournament I’m training for, like training for NAS nationals, I stopped training full-contact.”

And what does Karen think about the new NAS Extreme rules, encouraging takedowns, head-kicks and aerial kicks? “I would definitely start training them more and try to use them, if that didn’t work I would keep with my usual strategy. I think something I could definitely use would be the head-kicks,” she decides. “We do a lot of that in the full-contact fighting and I’d just have to make sure there was no contact there. We do a lot of takedowns in class. It’s not something I’ve used in competitions, but it’s something we use a lot in class, so I guess we could adapt it to competition.”

As for the spinning and jumping kicks, Karen isn’t so keen. “It’s probably something I’d need to work on a lot,” she admits. “We do turning kicks and spinning hook-kicks in class, but I feel like they’re a bit slow and more readable in competition, as compared to my more direct, straight-line techniques.” From Karen’s experience in other tournaments where extra points were awarded for more difficult techniques, she doesn’t believe that it will afford any advantage to NAS fighters who more readily train those aspects of their art. “I think if I’m ready for someone to be throwing something like that then it shouldn’t be too much of a disadvantage for me.”

Karen’s NAS title belt has pride of place in her lounge room, right on top of the television; the cup is above the fireplace. “It’s probably my biggest achievement, to date, I’d say, in competition and probably in anything I’ve done,” Karen proclaims. “[NAS is] very well run and has a very good tournament structure. In terms of the competition, it’s very strong and it’s great to be able to compete against people from other states and other styles.”

Another aspect of NAS that stands out for Karen is its large proportion of female competitors. “Sometimes I’ll turn up to a tournament and it will just be me and two other girls,” Karen says. “So it’s great that NAS has such a huge following. I think I had 11 fights on the Saturday to win, and that’s pretty huge.” Female fighters often encounter empty weight divisions or insufficient competitors. This doesn’t only frustrate the efforts of many women to compete, but it can also dull the thrill of winning. “It’s great to see that there are so many girls out there doing it,” enthuses Karen. “It gives you a greater sense of achievement when you have to get through that many girls and they’re all really very good.” Knowing that NAS provides an arena for women to compete is a strong incentive for many women to involve themselves in martial arts.

Any woman wishing to challenge Karen in this year’s NAS should heed her advice: “It’s something you really need to work towards all year and train for all year. In general training, in class, fight like you would in competition, all the time. Don’t let anyone score on you. Try to pick the points off other people. Don’t be lazy throughout the year and just train hard when the competition’s coming up. If it’s something you’re thinking about all the time, then it’s going to become more natural and you’re going to become better at it all the time — then it’s going to pay off.”