Each year this two-day tournament has continued to grow. Over 450 competitors from all over the East Coast made the trip to Columbia, including many of the top National NBL competitors and teams.

As in the past Pena recruited the best judges in the southeast to work the tournament. All the judges were pre-selected months in advance and knew their ring assignments prior to arriving.

Friday evening was a fun night of competition for all that attended featuring the musical divisions, continuous fighting, team fighting, breaking and kids divisions.

In the breaking division we saw some amazing feats by Team MVKC’s Steve Shockley and Tim McConell. Shockley made one really amazing break of a single board floating in water, but in the end his student Tim McConell won by 1/100 of a point.

The team fighting divisions were entertaining as well. In the finals of the girls team fighting, Team Unity defeated Marty Knight’s Team Knights by the score of 29-22.

In the boys quarter-finals we had a rematch of the finals from the Southern Classic. This time around Team FX defeated Team RKA by the score of 16-14. In the final match Team GOP defeated Team FX by the lopsided score of 16-8.

The competition started promptly at 10 am on Saturday morning with all the judges and scorekeepers in place ready to work. All 10 rings were utilized most of the day with very few delays.

The best fight of the day involved two world champions who had previously never faced one another, Gina Thornton of Team DDX and Julia Riley of Team War Angels. Riley, the younger of the two, started off quickly and had a 5-0 lead on the veteran Thornton. But Thornton came back slowly to tie and eventually win the match 6-5. Both of these ladies are among the best in all of sport karate.

The Carolina Martial Arts Open offered grand championships held on stage for both the blackbelts and underbelts, with cash awards going out to all of the winners. Underbelt grand champions took home $100, while the blackbelt winners won $500 each.

The junior advanced was loaded with exceptional talent including Brittany Payne, Alexandra Pyles, Ashley Middleton, Donald Smalls and Gabriel Gruse. Most of these kids gave us a blackbelt level performance and deserve a lot of credit. After the dust settled Gabriel Gruse of Team Strike Force left Columbia $100 richer. The intermediate rank grands went to Davis Teston of Team Strike force.

The junior blackbelt contemporary grands was an exceptional competition to watch. This featured some of the best junior blackbelts on the east coast. The competition was so close that there was a tie between Alex Pye, Gene Middleton and Josh Bailey. Pye performed on open hand form while Bailey and Middleton both used their bo staff. In the tie breaker both Pye and Middleton made minor mistakes that the judges picked up on immediately, while Bailey remained flawless and went on to win the Grand.

The adult blackbelt traditional forms grand championship was loaded with exceptional talent, but in the end it came down to youth versus experience with Lauren Ferguson (18) against Johnny Watkins (50). Both featured a strong form with nice deep stances and great intensity and they also wound up with a tied score. In the tiebreaker Ferguson’s Gojo-ju-die kata was stellar as she managed to pull off the win by 1/100 of a point.

The adult blackbelt contemporary forms grand championship was a classic between some of sport karate s finest. Jeff Doss, Johnny Watkins and Lauren Ferguson were among the group competitors looking to go home with $500 prize money. But everyone seemed surprised by the results as the win went to little known Team Strike Force’s Justin Drawdy. He looked like a younger version of his instructor Corky Sikes. His performance was so impressive the Judges gave him three 10 s.

The Carolina Martial Arts Open is easily one of the premier tournaments in the southeast, possibly the nation. This tournament is truly a 5 star event.