Held May 11-12, the Pacific Jewel Nationals boasted some big divisions, especially in traditional forms, and some hot and heavy sparring competition. Support for the event turned up from some far reaching places as Team Langley, Team Alchemy and Team GOP, all based in Texas but with some team members much further away, were present and in full force. Team DDX sported a couple adult men’s sparring teams and local teams East West Karate and Team Rock Solid’s huge underbelt contingency also helped make up the numbers at this event.

The Pacific Jewel Nationals finals opened with a demo from the all underbelt Rock Solid Team that was well choreographed and showed a lot of talent by the group of future blackbelts. It also set the stage for the competition ahead.

Contemporary Grands
In the junior choreographed musical forms department Michelle Sims showed an increasing improved performance while Andrew Kowalewski started out looking incredibly strong but a few missteps dimmed his chances. In the end multi world title winner Sage Northcutt of Texas pulled off his top performance to win the Grand. It was sword versus bo in the junior choreographed musical weapons grandchampionship. Jordan Simon opened the competition with his “Welcome to the Jungle” bo routine. Behind-the-back catches and clean tricks accented Jamie Nakamura’s sword performance and earned him the win.

In adult contemporary forms and weapons Joshua Durbin got shut out at the Pacific Jewel Nationals. This time around, Durbin’s musical and extreme form and weapons performances were not enough to stop Ashley “Mocha” Davies of California from winning the contemporary forms grand championship and Rommel Gargoles of New Jersey from winning in weapons. Gargoles’ whip chain routine defeated not only Durbin but also Davies and Jerico Catura as well.

Youth Continuous and Point Sparring
The Pacific Jewel prides itself on being unique and lived up to that goal this evening by including not only junior continuous sparring but also point sparring on stage.

The fighting started with a fists of fury demonstration match between teammates Eduardo Baz and Nicolas Medina in the featherweight continuous sparring finals. These pint sized monsters tore up the stage and had the crowd roaring. In the end Medina came out on top with a 56-44 win, but Baz had already won the daytime for the ratings points. Erika Slade of Texas brought one home for Team Langley with a 71-60 defeat over Cole Butler in the flyweight division, but again Butler had already won the eliminations for the points. Michael Hassey and Joshua Romero ended their continuous battle in a tie. In overtime, Texas’ Hassey scored first to win with a 49-48 score. Oscar Hernandez also from Texas was a maniac on the floor as he faced the normally calm and laid back fighting style of Naveed Kermaninejad in the boys heavyweight continuous finals. Hernandez’s energy spurred him to a 84-71 win. Marissa Mayer of Rhode Island was all power as she took out Tanya Hunt with a 75-57 win in girls’ lightweight continuous sparring.

In point sparring Frankie Fernandez’s 6-1 win over James Slade in the 12-13 division kept Fernandez’s winning streak alive. AJ Maunder of Canada was close but couldn’t overcome Casey Williamson of South Carolina as he won the 16-17 division with a 4-2 score.

Traditional Forms and Weapons
Andrew Kowalewski of Idaho redeemed himself with a win of the junior Japanese forms grandchampionship, defeating Michelle Sims. Sage Northcutt won a second grand championship in junior Korean forms as he kept his shirt on to defeat Jordan Simon.

The adult traditional competition was a tough one with Shantell Dawson making a return to competition, Jerico Catura’s unique Korean routine, Brandon Bertsch’s hard-to-top bo and David Coppock’s enthusiastic Kenpo performance. But in the end it was Canadian Andrew Cabilan who topped them all with the intensity of his Japanese performance.

Adult Sparring
With old standbys Marty Maye and Tim Gustavson nursing wounds, DDX had to improvise by using Justus Lawrence and Joshua May along with Troy Whaley as they faced East West’s Doug Bertrand, Eric Ehmke and Ortice Harper. Whaley and Bertrand kept it near even in round one as it ended with East West up by one point. Lawrence and Ehmke exchanged high kicks but Lawrence prevailed with a 7-3 score, putting DDX up by three. In the final round, Harper got May’s number and called it repeatedly as he scored many unanswered points and brought East West back from the brink and beyond with an 8-3 win to give East West a 15-13 win and the men’s team sparring title.

Spurred by the team sparring loss, DDX’s young upstarts decided to do something about it in the individual grands. Jessica Covarrubias let loose on Tamika Simmons with a 7-3 win for the women’s grand champion title. Troy Whaley’s 8-5 defeat of Chris Dasalla helped assure a DDX win in the men’s sparring grands. After Wade Taylor narrowly defeated Ryan Gonzalez, he and Whaley went head to head. Taylor had let the win at Golden Gate Nationals slide through his fingers but was not about to do the same at Pacific Jewel. A 4-1 victory over Whaley brought him a grandchampionship notch for his belt.

And with that, the competition was over but the Pacific Jewel party had JUST BEGUN! The little city of Vancouver was rocking as the Pacific Jewel participants wrapped up the evening in style!