Participated in the ISKA World Breaking Championships

By Don Rush

Thousands of competitors and spectators from across the world converged on Orlando, FL earlier in the month for the ISKA (International Sport Karate Association)World Breaking Championships, including one family from Oxford.

ISKA is a sport karate, all styles kickboxing, mixed martial arts (MMA) sanctioning body in the United States and over 50 countries worldwide. Oxford resident Joshua Stokes, 39, is an instructor for the American Martial Arts Academy (AMAA) that runs the karate program through the Lake Orion Community Schools Enrichment Services at the Community Education Resource Center (CERC). He also competed in the World Breaking Championships and won the Lightweight Power Concrete Kick division breaking 14 out of 14 concrete patio blocks.

“We started the ISKA World Breaking Championships with the Concrete Power Kick event,” Stokes said. “I was second to last to go and I was surprised to see the amount of material broken by the competitors that went before me. There were a few that broke 12 and 13 blocks, which are big numbers for this event. In order to go for the win, I had to put up at least 14. I broke 14 of 14 concrete blocks using a sidekick to place first in this event and earn the World Champion title.”

According to Stokes, in the Power Concrete Kick event, concrete patio blocks are stacked vertically on a stand made up of cinder blocks so competitors complete a horizontal kick that is about waist level. The blocks used for the power breaking events are 2” x 8” x 16” concrete patio blocks.

“My foot actually felt pretty good after hitting 14 blocks,” he said. “With breaking it seems to hurt less when you break all the material in your stack. My arms are banged up and bruised a bit from the other breaks I completed and holding for the other competitors.”

Stokes also competed in three other Breaking Championships, Three Directional Power Wood, Concrete Power Arm and Creative Breaking.

The Three Directional Power Wood event requires three strikes to be completed within five seconds. The first two are horizontal breaks where other competitors hold unspaced, wood boards for a hand or arm strike and the last break is a vertical break using a hand or arm technique on a stack of spaced wood boards. “I broke 20 of 24 boards in this event using all elbow strikes, finishing third in the event,” he said.

The Concrete Power Arm event consists of a single vertical strike using a hand or arm technique on a stack of spaced concrete patio blocks. Stokes broke eight of 10 blocks using an elbow strike.

In the Creative Breaking event competitors execute a series of up to 12 breaks to demonstrate a variety of techniques on different types of materials. This is the only subjective event in the breaking where competitors are ranked based upon the variety, creativity, materials, and difficulty of the breaks performed.

In contrast to other events like weapons and forms, there is no subjectivity in power breaking because the winner is determined purely by the amount of material broken. Whoever breaks the most material wins the event. Tie breakers are determined by the percentage of material attempted in the break. For example, if a competitor broke 10 of 11 blocks they would place behind a competitor who broke 10 of 10 blocks because their completion percentage was less. “So, there is a bit of strategy involved with how big of a break you attempt with a large advantage to the breaker who goes last in the event,” he said.

Thousands of competitors across all the events at the U.S. Open, including the ISKA World Breaking Championships Stokes competed. “These are ‘invite only’ competitions and you must qualify in previous competitions to be invited. There were about 10 competitors in each of the divisions I competed in.”

Stokes is a 2^nd Degree Black Belt in Tang Soo Do. He has been with AMAA for 10 years, five as an instructor. “I think I was about 28 or 29 when my son (Connor) came home from school with a flyer for karate and said that he wanted to do it. We ended up joining together and both earned our black belts about five years later,” he said.

This was the second time Stokes and his family, wife Kylie, children Connor, 15, Brooklyn, 13 and Allison, 10 have attended the U.S. Open. “My family and I have turned this into an annual vacation, he said. “We’ll pull the camper down to Orlando for the tournament and make stops along the way to do touristy things and visit family. This year’s trip is about 2,700 miles round trip.”