Teenag­er Nicholas See­baran has been el­e­vat­ed to "A" lev­el by the Unit­ed States Spe­cial­i­ty Sports As­so­ci­a­tion (USS­SA) Karate Ref­er­ee Com­mit­tee af­ter pass­ing both prac­ti­cal and the­o­ry parts. See­baran, who is the youngest cer­ti­fied karate of­fi­cial in the world, gained his el­e­vat­ed sta­tus in No­vem­ber 2011. See­baran start­ed karate in 2006 un­der Dar­ryl Williams and took his first ref­er­ee course with­in one year. In March 2009 af­ter more than 20 cours­es he got his na­tion­al li­cense. In Ju­ly 2010 he passed his World Union of Karate-do Or­gan­i­sa­tions (WUKO) con­ti­nen­tal ex­ams in Buenos Aires. Af­ter re­ceiv­ing his black belt in 2010, he con­tin­ued to func­tion as a youth in­struc­tor at Bas­sai Karate Do­jo in Or­lan­do. He teach­es the ref­er­ee pro­gramme and pur­sues tame­shawari (break­ing) as a pas­sion. His lat­est break was sev­en 2.5-inch boards (with­out spac­ers). He is cur­rent­ly an "A" stu­dent at Evans High School, Or­lan­do and is prepar­ing for col­lege. Karate Fed­er­a­tion is best um­brel­la body ac­cord­ing to na­tion­al sur­vey.

The T&T Karate Fed­er­a­tion (T&TKF) will be host­ing a Mas­ter Camp and Chief In­struc­tors meet­ing on Sun­day (Jan 8th) at its train­ing cen­tre on #12 Fourth Street, Mt Lam­bert. The camp will be lead by lead in­struc­tor Sen­sei An­tho­ny Par­ris (8th Dan). The fed­er­a­tion has been named as the most vi­brant and ac­tive karate or­gan­i­sa­tion in the coun­try; this ac­cord­ing to a na­tion­wide sur­vey car­ried out over two months. The 100 ques­tion­naire in­clud­ed ques­tions about man­age­ment, con­tin­u­ing ed­u­ca­tion pro­grams, ac­cred­i­ta­tion, op­por­tu­ni­ties for ad­vance­ment etc. Over 90 per cent of in­struc­tors/black belts in­ter­viewed in­di­cat­ed they will join the fed­er­a­tion this year if they are not al­ready a mem­ber. Par­ents al­so feel very com­fort­able with the T&TKF since the fed­er­a­tion asks for their in­put re­gard­ing chil­dren pro­grammes on a reg­u­lar ba­sis. On safe­ty since all T&TKF head in­struc­tors are re­quired to be First Aid/CPR cer­ti­fied, par­ents feel this is one of the best ar­eas of train­ing be­sides tech­ni­cal skill. For more in­fo call Mau­reen Springer at 620-5415.

Karate Fed­er­a­tion 2011 top mem­bers

Eighth Dan Sen­sei An­tho­ny Par­ris and 5th Dan Sen­sei Mau­reen Springer, have been named the T&T Karate Fed­er­a­tion's (T&TKF) men's and women's Per­son­al­i­ty of the Year re­spec­tive­ly.

The fed­er­a­tion has named their top karatekas for 2011 based on their con­tri­bu­tion to the ad­vance­ment of the fed­er­a­tion and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment in 2011.

Out­stand­ing

The fol­low­ing have ex­celled based on skill, cur­rent train­ing, and ex­per­tise:

Per­son­al­i­ty of the year (Male)-An­tho­ny Par­ris

Per­son­al­i­ty of the year (Fe­male)-Mau­reen Springer

Male In­struc­tor-Rae John­son

Ath­lete with dis­abil­i­ty-Der­rick Mundy

Fe­male in­struc­tor-Lena Win­ter

Top of­fi­cial-Lex Springer

Male ath­lete-Cas­sious Chan­dre

Fe­male ath­lete-Celise Thomas

Youth of the year-Nicholas See­baran