Latest Promotions posted from the early November tests for both color and black belts!

November 2002 - Yours truly flew off Down Under to his first international tournament in Sydney and came back with two bronze medals from the Gay Games VI.

Newsflash: James Lark married!

After hiding away from us (he says he'll be back to class any moment now), James took "the plunge".

October 2002 - Sifu notified of his promotion to 7th Dan by Al Tracy!

Saturday, 9/28/02 - The Twin Towers Classic International Karate Championships were a bust. Literally. Out for his first tournament with our school, Ranadeb Mukherjee executed a head high hook kick to his opponent, knocking him off balance. Unfortunately for our intrepid fighter, his adversary countered with a low muay thai kick to Ranadeb's shin, and with a "snap" he made CHKA history, the first student to break a bone in competition!

Not to be outdone, Charlie Poliacof decided to break his leg in a casual "horseplay" bout with a jiu jitsu stylist friend of his. Charlie says he's going to go for his November belt test standing on one foot...

From Sensei Brian:

"Just wanted to let the whole CHKA family know that my wife and I are the proud parents of a new baby boy: Dante Orion Field. He came a few weeks early and surprised us all, but my wife was ready - that little guy kept doing Iron Horse in her belly, and boy did it hurt her! He's a fit 6lbs 7 oz, and was born on August 27 at 6:20 pm."

Saturday, August 3rd - Shihan Augie Blancas writes to let us know that his son, Justin David Blancas, took first place in both forms (with Iron Horse) and sparring today at "The Rumble on the Lakefront" at Truman College in Chicago.

Correction: Due to a records error, and our not noticing it on the website, Joseph Anthony Freyre, head instructor at Salamanca Aikikai in Spain, was listed as a 1st dan blackbelt. He correctly called to our attention that he had tested for, and received, his 3rd dan in 1996, and will actually be up for 4th dan this fall when he visits New York. Our apologies for the error, it has been corrected on the blackbelt page - which has also been reformatted to reflect belt rank order. Sensei Joseph's school also has a website:

News from far away...reprinted as received

Dan: Hope all is well with you. Could you please tell Sifu and Eva that 
everything is ok except we have no water here. We are officially parents. Our 
daughter Alena Danielle Abramowitz was officially granted to us in Krasnoyarsk 
Court on June 25. We are flying to Moscow tomorrow Saturday June 29 to get our 
daugter a US visa. we return to NYC on July 3. Happy 4th. 

Regards 

Roy & Jan 

Friday, June 28, 2002 - Congratulations to Sensei Juan Jaramillo, CHKA's Instructor of the Year! (photos to come)

New USDTKA (our Chicago affiliate school) newsletter online: 

Promotions held from the last color belt test on April 28th. Check out who's who on the promotions page!

For those who missed his visit, Santiago Garcia Almaraz, the head instructor for one of our schools in Spain, visited New York in late March. While here, Sifu personally confirmed his advancement to 3rd dan. The school has its own website:

The 7th Annual Dragons Tong Karate Championships, hosted by Fred and Laura Richmond, were held in Chicago on February 17th. Sifu, Eva, & CHKA students from New York attended this well-run event. We got to see some of the best that martial arts has to offer. We are very proud of Fred and Laura (as well as their students & students' parents!) for all their hard work and determination in putting together such a successful event.

Further, we're very proud of Tanya for her first place win in the women's sparring division; and of Tor, for his second place in the men's sparring division.

Also at this event in Chicago, Sifu Jack and Grandmaster Steve "Nasty" Anderson promoted Shihan Augustus (Augie) Blancas to 5th Dan, Kwanjangnim Fred Richmond to 7th Dan, Sam Brown to 5th Dan, and Laura Richmond to 4th Dan. Congratulations to these fine martial artists!

Just because it may be interesting...  Our website has been up and running for two and a half years now. Nearly 10,000 different visitors have dropped in to check us out - many of them then come back again. New students have come to our school after finding out about us - we've had inquiries about coming to train with us from as far away as Georgia - in the former USSR! Some of the "statistics", hopefully the interesting ones:

• Visitors have been from 50 different identified countries: USA, Canada, Spain, Australia, United Kingdom, Italy, Finland, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, France, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, Portugal, Greece, Chile, Poland, Singapore, Denmark, Hungary, Israel, Argentina, Malaysia, Russian Federation, Guatemala, South Africa, Hong Kong, Norway, Pakistan, Czech Republic, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Bolivia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Georgia, Japan, Costa Rica, Luxembourg, Ecuador, Egypt, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Nepal, and Samoa.

• Not surprisingly, our busiest times are evening our time (5pm until about 1am). Surprisingly, Tuesdays are by far our busiest days for people visiting the site... go figure. Most of our guests come to us through either Google or MSN search engines, with reasonably close second & third places coming from AOL & Yahoo.