Club Profile: Sooner Judo Norman, Oklahoma Kata, the practice and demonstration of judo forms, isn’t a special focus at Sooner Judo, but it is taught to all club members, and that’s more than happens at a lot of judo clubs throughout the country. Briefly (too briefly), kata involves practicing and perfecting throws and other techniques with a cooperative partner, rather than an opponent. The techniques are rehearsed and presented for competition. Some of these forms, unlike shiai or randori, include training with weapons – fighting sticks, simulated knives and guns. That all Sooner judoka get training in kata may have something to do with the presence

of their head sensei, Dr. Joel "Jick" Holloway.

A Seventh Degree Black Belt, Holloway, has been National Kata Champion 20 times.

Dr. Holloway and his kata partner, third-degree black belt Ralph Sexton, won the first

World Kata Overall Grand Champion Award in Brisbane, Australia in 1994.

Since then, Holloway has coached multiple national and world kata gold medalists.

Sexton and Steven Kenton, also a third-degree black belt, are assistant coaches at

Sooner Judo.

But the Sooners are known for medaling in state, national and international shiai, too,

which may have something to with the club’s kata training?

Sooner Judo is the home club of Ron Tripp, Sixth-degree Black Belt, multiple national

medalist, world team member, former President and current General Secretary of USA

Judo. Also hailing from Sooner Judo is Katherine Ensler, second-degree Black Belt,

multiple Junior National Champion, Pan Am Silver Medalist, and Olympic team runner-

up.

Sooner Judo is one of the older clubs in the country, started in 1954 as a student club

by Percy Buchanan, a professor of Asian studies at the University of Oklahoma in

Norman. In the 1970s, the club went off-campus and became a freestanding private

non-profit after the faculty sponsor at that time retired.

For more on Sooner Judo, go the club’s website HERE.

- Story by Ernest Pund