officials and another 100 people we employ for that day.
There are 800 divisions and 30 rings. Without our team,
it would be totally impossible. [And] we want it to get
bigger and better every year.”THE HIGHLIGHT ZONE
[You have arrived at your final destination: the 2019 U.S.
Open Night of Champions.]The best of the best went head-to-head in the ISKA
World Championships. The action took place in forms,
weapons, team sparring, team synchro forms, team syn-
chro weapons and point sparring. The event was report-
edly watched live by 85 million people in the Americas
thanks to ESPN3 and Fight Sports Satellite and Stream-
ing Network, which carried the competition in 53 addi-
tional countries.
Color commentary was provided by former Power
Ranger Mike Chat, with post-victory interviews con-
ducted by Caitlin Dechelle, who served as Gal Gadot’s
stunt double in Wonder Woman.
The current world traditional kata champion, a Span-
ish martial artist named Sandra Sanchez, did a winning
form that was simply breathtaking. In essence, she gave
a clinic on what a kata should look like. Fluid and strong,
her kicks and punches made her gi snap like a gunshot,
and the sound was audible over the din of the crowd. Her
next challenge is to win the gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
Reid Presley won both the ISKA men’s overall forms
division and NASKA’s overall CMX forms division. Cap-
turing those new titles in overall forms had been a goal
of his, a way to showcase his diversity. Watching Presley
do his thing onstage, it was little wonder this young
man’s exceptional talent was featured on the AMC series
Into the Badlands and on America’s Got Talent.
Mackensi Emory won the overall forms titles for
ISKA and NASKA — for the second year in a row. That
brings her tally of world championships to 14. The
six-year member of Team Paul Mitchell displayed her
roots in gymnastics while turning her two kama into a
whirling-and-twirling blender. During her post-victory
interview, Emory teased the audience by noting that
Hollywood has been calling for her talents and that
she’s about to move to Los Angeles. She’s already dis-
played her skills in the movie Streetlights; it’s not a
stretch to imagine that soon she, like Dechelle, will beringside. As soon as parents saw [that this was] safer for
their kids, they wanted to know where to buy them.
“By 1987 it was mandatory, and this became the stan-
dard for every tournament. We would be very surprised if
we went to a tournament [today] and saw people compet-
ing without headgear.”
Other changes instituted at the U.S. Open included
requiring officials to wear uniforms denoting whether they
can be a corner judge or a center judge and at which level
of competition they are certified: under-belt or black belt.
The changes also meant adding a traditional forms divi-
sion that was expanded to encompass creative forms and
musical forms for both empty-hand and weapons competi-
tors — something that’s taken for granted today.
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
Among its usual something-for-everyone offerings with
respect to competition, the 2019 iteration of the U.S.
Open featured a first timer’s division. It was designed to
allow people who’d never competed — regardless of rank
— to join the fray with less stress and more fun so they
might become regular participants.
This year, those who fell outside that category and
who like traditional karate forms and fighting had the
option to compete in the newest Olympic martial sport
by entering the Punok U.S. Open Championships, held
on-site. Those who prefer to get their kicks from ITF
taekwondo could have entered the U.S. Open Challenge
Championships, also on-site. Those who are grapplers at
heart could have rolled in the Kasai Super Series. And,
of course, those who are into point fighting, continuous
sparring, team fighting and practically every other subset
of martial arts competition had dozens of divisions cater-
ing to all ages and skill levels.
Those who are like me in that they enjoy watching mar-
tial artists smash things into smithereens were in luck,
too. The ISKA/USBA World Amateur Breaking Champi-
onships, also held at the U.S. Open, was awesome. In the
power-breaking division, competitors demolished rows
of concrete slabs so large they would not have been out
of place on a construction site. One highlight came when
Lexi Thompson practically stole the show in creative
breaking by smashing two slabs of concrete with a front
kick/jump spinning back kick combination.
Sawyer summarized the logistics of offering such
variety: “The U.S. Open is a monster. We have 150
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