“After the ’22 floods we had a couple of athletes in the State Karate team….Reece Prior for athletes with a disability and Krystal Boyce who was a fighter in the State team. For the last two years they have both been National Champions, the very best in the country. To qualify for the World Championships they had to win the Continental Championships which was the Oceana Games held in Noumea a few months ago. They both won which gained them a spot in the World Championships.
There are five continents and they pick the top 32 fighters from all divisions and in that 32 they include the five Continental Champions and two of those five are our guys. We are the only Dojo in this World Championships that has more than one person representing it. Both athletes have been in the Australian team before and both got gold medals overseas. The last time someone represented Australia in the World Championships from this whole region was 23 years ago so to have two of our Lismore people representing Australia and representing our Dojo is huge and a testament to the coaches and the athletes and the hard work that they all put in.
We weren’t here prior to the flood. Our venue was totally destroyed and condemned. We lost all of our equipment in that flood. Nobody expected it would be well over three metres from the ground so we lost everything. We basically had to start from scratch again. At the time we had a club of about 70 students and a lot of those students were kids. The parents of those kids were begging us to find somewhere and do something to give their kids a little bit of normal to occupy them after the trauma. We found a church hall in East Lismore which was tiny but we made it work. We ran some classes every week and we also ran a gofund me account because a lot of our students were flood affected and lost everything including their homes so we were able to raise some decent money to help those students to try and help them get back on their feet. It became really important for us to be able to support our community to give back what we had gotten from people who had come in the door and trusted us.
From there we found a venue which was really difficult in our town. We found a shed which used to be Hurfords Hardware. We cleaned it up and fitted it out as a Dojo, it was the first time ever we had a place that was just ours so it was a nice opportunity for us to make a home out of it. All the work we put in there payed off so we ended up growing unexpectedly very fast.
We had to look around for something bigger and it was still so difficult. We found the old Gymnastics building here in Phyllis St, South Lismore which was still covered in mud, holes in the walls and pretty much bare bones but we could see the potential in it. We did a whole lot of work, painting and cleaning and fitting it out and turning it into our dream Dojo. The students came with us and brought new people. We were about 100 students when we moved in here and now our numbers have doubled.
We had an opportunity to turn this space into our new Dojo. We have built up to over 200 people and the success of the athletes has grown exponentially. Right now we have four athletes overseas in different competitions but these two Reece and Krystal are by far the most successful in the country. Reece is a leader in the disability space and we want more people with disabilities here and in their country as a leader in that space. Reece is one of the first disabled athletes to really push the boundaries for the divisions that are available in Australia and to qualify for divisions that are available internationally. We are so proud of them both.”