Florida Karate Academy and dozens of other Karate schools met Saturday,September 27th at the Florida AAU Headquarters in Orlando, Florida for a clinic for Referees, Coaches and the volunteers that help run AAU Karate'svery successful regional and national tournaments. Joining the clinic was Linda Donner, National Team Coach and a member of the Referee Council at the National AAU Karate office in Chicago, Illinois and Sensei Steve Robinson, District Manager in North Carolina and also a member of the AAU National Referee Council who brought everyone up-to-date on new AAU membership rules.

The clinic started off with an overview of the official 2009 AAU Karate rules for tournaments including Weapons standards and proper scoring for fighting. Deanna Pinner gave a power-point presentation on the Florida based web-site that enables all Florida AAU Karate athletes, coaches, referees, and volunteers to register for tournaments on-line. The web-site also provides the Sensei's an overview of their competition students and what their status is throughout the competition season.

The National AAU web-site was also discussed. Jennifer Miles, National AAU Karate Sports Manager gave a presentation showing what new items they have to expedite memberships for whole Karate clubs easily and quickly. New rules about concurrent memberships were also discussed, explaining why athletes who also work as referees, coaches and volunteers must have a nonathletic membership card along with their athlete membership. You can tour the web-site yourself at www.aausports.org.

Later, after a lunch of sandwiches and chips, groups were formed for coaches, volunteers, and referees. All the groups had their own training pertaining to their participation in AAU Karate tournaments. The coaches were reminded to read all the rules available on the www.aaukarate.org web-site so they would be better able to advise their athletes. Also coaches were encouraged to help coach any Florida athlete in the "ring" that did not have a coach available from their Karate School to create a real "Team Florida".

Referees watched a power-point presentation by Mark Pinner, District 4 Director on neglected Ippon scoring techniques and what the techniques looked like. It was very helpful in learning to identify some of the points that are called Wazari (half point) that should be scored as Ippon (full point). After the presentation Junior and Senior Referees practiced "seeing" points with two young volunteers that "fought" in a small ring. All referees had a chance to practice scoring with the flag system and practice centering the ring and declaring an "enchosen" or extension because of a tie, for the fighting match.

Many individual questions were answered, all in an effort to create the best referees, coaches, and volunteers in the state. Many Junior Referees have joined the ranks of AAU Karate Referees this last year increasing the experience AAU will have on the competition floor now and in the future. Florida is now more prepared to run great karate tournaments at the state and national level. For more information about this article, please go to www.floridakarateacademy.com or call (772) 563-9333.