THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610250229
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 84 lines
Fourteen-year-old Michael Lombardo Jr. is beginning to believe in horoscopes.
While en route to the world karate championship in Baltimore last weekend, the Virginia Beach teen-ager looked up his horoscope for Oct. 20 and found this message: ``You will be in a great competition and come out in first place.''
The prediction turned out to be right on the money for Lombardo, drum captain for Dragon Force, a karate demonstration team sponsored by the Ryoshin-Kan Karate School in Virginia Beach. The 25-member team took first place and the title of world champion.
``This is the first time Dragon Force has competed in world championships as a team,'' said an elated Tim Thompson, who founded the school - and Dragon Force - in 1980. ``This is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It's taken almost 15 years to put together the team, which has to be made up of black belts in karate.''
The competition, ``John Burdyck's Battle of Baltimore World Karate Championships,'' was held in the arena at Essex Community College in a suburb of Baltimore. More than 100 teams from the United States and abroad had been nominated, Thompson said, from which 40 were selected and visited by competition officials at their home sites. The four finalists were invited to Maryland where they were judged. Dragon Force's 30-minute presentation was edited to 10 minutes to meet contest rules.
``It's basically making a Broadway style martial arts show,'' Thompson said. ``It tells a story and involves choreography. It's a live performance.''
Among practitioners of the martial arts, Thompson is known as ``sensei,'' Japanese for instructor, and ``shihan,'' Japanese for master teacher. The literal translation of ``sensei,'' he explained, is ``one who has gone before.'' Thompson did that, in 1991, when he was on a U.S. team that finished second in the world.
His Dragon Force team members, ages 10 to 46, have between three and 30 years experience each in the martial arts. The team keeps an active schedule of between 50 and 70 demonstrations a year, at such venues as Virginia Beach's public libraries and the Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk.
The team has performed at the Pungo Strawberry Festival for the past eight years and made a feature-length movie, ``The Adventures of Dragon Force.''
``A lot of those men that the spectators see on stage,'' Thompson said, ``have been with me since they were little kids.''
They include students, college graduates, engineers, police officers and several father-son teams.
``My son Matt, 13, a freshman at Kellam High School, is also on the team,'' said Dragon Force member Steve Borloz, 46. ``It's one of the things we do together. He was on the team first.''
The morning after their win, a tired Borloz was delighted by the results that earned them a 6-foot-tall team trophy and individual trophies for each team member.
``It felt great,'' he said. ``We put a lot of work into it and it felt good to have it pay off.''
Added Thompson: ``I've been doing this for 30 years and have over 15 years of owning the school. It was very emotional. All of a sudden it just all came together.
``We practiced our butts off on the timing to make sure things were smooth. The team members were ready. They were primed.''
Joshua Morgan, 20, of Virginia Beach, a student at Tidewater Community College and team member for 10 years, said ``it was a relief after working so hard for so long.
``It was all worth it. When we saw the 6-foot trophy coming in, we started raising Cain.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DAWSON MILLS
Dragon Force members such as Jason Criss, left, Ralph Walter Jr. and
Michael Lombardo Jr. earned a 6-foot-tall team trophy and individual
trophies. The team is sponsored by the Ryoshin-Kan Karate School.
Graphic
TEAM MEMBERS
Chesapeake Min Lee
Norfolk Dewey Blake, Ray Cook, Michael Peregoff, Steven Phillips
Jr., Ian Rockwell
Virginia Beach Alfred Alejandro, Robbie Banes, Matt Borloz, Steve
Borloz, Jarrett Conaway, Jason Criss, Kevin Dodge, Wesley Fox, Rick
Gerriets, Michael Hibben, William Lee, Michael Lombardo Jr., Joshua
Morgan, Dale Olson, Maury Riganto IV, Chae Thompson, Tim Thompson,
Ralph Walters, Russel Williams by CNB