By JARROD POTTER
CRANBOURNE martial artist Ivan Kucera kept himself extremely busy last year.
At the Victorian championships, Kucera played second in the forms veterans competition and backed up that performance with third in the male open black belt middleweight division as well as participating in the forms and point sparring for veterans and black belt competitions.
“Pretty good as it’s the first open black belt event that I’ve done since I got back to training so I’m really rapt,” Kucera said about his performance at the meet last year.
“It was pretty good standard – we’re usually there to have fun and do your best and try to achieve what you can and try to better yourself.”
In a national all styles martial arts tournament held last year, Kucera maintained his excellent form – earning second place in forms competition and finishing third in two categories for point sparring in veterans and open black belt.
Kucera threw himself into martial arts since 2002, training with Winged Dragon at Epping.
“Been into it since 2002 and had a little break with family issues and that but came back and got my black belt and won a couple of Victorian titles,” Kucera said.
“Finished third in the nationals last year and had a torn rotary cuff in my shoulder and didn’t even know, but did all right despite that.”
Kucera, a first-dan black belt in karate, started the Ti-Ga Karate Self Defence Dojo at Rangebank Primary School in Cranbourne in May 2013.
As part of Winged Dragon Martial and Healing Arts, Kucera is thrilled to help the children of Cranbourne learn martial arts and improve their ability to defend themselves and improve self-confidence.
“I’ve always wanted to teach – I used to do Wing Chun years ago and always wanted to teach kids.
“Helps them get understanding about what martial arts is about and teaching and self-defence and I like teaching so it’s good.
“It relaxes you, makes you really calm – that’s what I tell the kids – I get a lot that are high strung and then teach them to relax.”
For more information on Ti-Ga Karate Self Defence, contact Ivan Kucera on 0433 174 852.
