Latest News
Auckland League 1
12 March 2025
The new Auckland League Series has kicked of for 2025. There are four league events through the year, with a grand champion at the end!
Toatakai had 13 players competing on Sunday, with some great highlights on the mat.
Thats a Wrap on 2024!
16 December 2024
Thanks to all the students, parents and supporters who helped make an amazing year, and we can't wait for an even bigger 2025!
Student of the Year - Kysen Rusbridge
High Performace Player of the Year - Eledon Ing
Club member of the Year - Bellah McGregor
Europe Videos
14 October 2024
Check out the travelling, training and competition of the boys for the 3 weeks in Europe. The boys had heaps of fights between the three competitions, with plenty of highlights to show!
Week 2 - https://youtu.be/g7Jh7vJrm0U?si=9ZBeexC6NZwmijfr
Week 3 - https://youtu.be/t7hlMgg6zGA?si=P_0zNnksiL9d5iKx
Toatakai on Tour in Europe
25 September 2024
Barney, Raukawa, Elemer and Eledon just returned back from their 3 ½ week tour in Europe. Taking a 🥇 and 🥉 at the Croatian Open, and then 🥇, 🥈 and 2 x 🥉 at the Budapest Open, it was a very successful trip!
The boys got a great chance to train in five different Dojos in four countries. We’ve come back with a heap of great exercises, and lots of motivation after such great results.
Grading
5 July 2024
Congratulations to all the students passing a tough grading last week! With a busy term of competitions, it was difficult to also do the extra traditional training. So well done everyone putting in the extra work and earning a new belt.
Kirikiriroa Open
25 June 2024
The first Kirikiriroa Open held at Hamilton Boys High👊.
I'm so proud of the club for all the work behind the scenes and on the day to put on an awesome competition! Thank you to all the volunteers and thank you to all the referees, without who this day would not be possible.
Another thank you to our sponosors for the event - PCI Electrical, QP Sport, Ing Trading, Mega Fluid, Waikato Shutters and Blinds & Insurance Base.
Finally to our coaches Bellah, Lawsen, Liam and Raukawa, for helping all our young players throughout the day
Congratulations to all those that walked away with the medals. We look forward to seeing you all again next year!
12 Hour Run Fundraiser
06 June 2024
Barney, Raukawa, Elemer and Eledon headed down to the Hamilton Lake for a 12 hour challenge to complete as many laps as possible last Sunday 👊🏃♂️.
This was also a fundraiser for the boys, as they will be heading to Europe for 3 weeks to train and compete in Sepetember. A massive thank you to everyone that supported us!
2024 Australain Open
03 May 2024
Toatakai Lighting Up the 2024 Australian Open!
An awesome highlight reel as Toatakai players showed off their abilities at the highest level on our continent! Takedowns, Spin kicks, side kicks, and jumping spinning back kicks were all on display as our players stacked up points and we made our mark on foreign soil. Well done to all the players for repping Toatakai so strong, and showing what warriors taking on the world really means .
New Dojo Equipment!
22 April 2024
Big thanks to Sport New Zealand's Tū Manawa Fund, supported by Sport Waikato! Thanks to them we've welcomed a whole bunch of new gear, taking our Dojo to the next level.
We’ve welcomed some new breaking boards, agility equipment, kicking and punching pads, balance equipment, agility lights and stretching machines!
2024 Auckland Classic
03 March 2024
Check out Toatakai Karate players competing in the first competition for 2024 - the Auckland Classic on 3rd March 2024. In 8 Divisions, we took 4 x 🥇, 3 x 🥈 and 1 x 🥉!
2023 Christmas Party and Prizegiving
10 December 2023
An awesome way to celebrate an awesome year! Well done to all our prize winners on their outstanding work in training this year.
Student of the Year - Matthew Liu
High Performace Player of the Year - Elemer Ing
Club member of the Year - Barton Lee
Round the Bridges
12 November 2023
Great job by Elemer, Eledon, Dallas, Raukawa and Barney for completing the Round the Bridges 12k, plus all the other students completing the 6k race as well!
Junior Levefre Seminar
16 July 2023
Barney and Dallas travelled up to Auckland to take part in a training seminar with Ex World Champion Junior Levefre over the weekend. An awesome experience training with an exeptional competitor and coach!
Australia Open
8 May 2023
Incredible results from our team, with every player making the podium! This was the first time we've had a full team representing Toatakai at an international competition, so it was awesome to see such a performance from everyone on and off the mat. Congratulations to all our players!
Check out the hightlights from our fighters, along with a video of Dallas, Elemer, Eledon and Lucas talking about their experiences of the trip.
🥇 Raukawa Jefferies • Senior -75kg
🥇 Dallas Lee • 10/11 yrs -35kg
🥇 Elemer Ing • 12/13 yrs -40kg
🥈 Lucas Shou • 8/9 yrs Open
🥉 Liam Singer • Senior +84kg
🥉 Eledon Ing • 12/13 -45kg
🥇 Barney Gill • Senior Open
🥈 Raukawa Jefferies • Senior Open
Training with Okay Arpa
7 February 2023
Some highlights of our incredible training with World Champion and elite level coach Okay Arpa the last two long weekends. Barney was fortunate enough to live and train with Okay in Istanbul in 2015. We’re super exited to host Okay in our Toatakai Dojo 8 years later!
2022 Wrap up
20 December 2022
Some of the highlights from an awesome 2022 at Toatakai Karate.
Lauren and I want to wish all the students and their families an awesome Christmas and New Years break, and we'll catch you all back on February 1st to kick off 2023!
Toatakai Christmas Party
10 December 2022
Congrats to our award winners for their effort and dicspline this year! A big thanks to Ninja Valley for supplying us some vouchers for prizes.
Student of the Year - Lucas Shou
High Performace Player of the Year - Eledon Ing
Club member of the Year - Leigh-Anne Cordiner
Raukawa in Turkey
3 October 2022
Raukawa spent the last couple of weeks in Turkey Series A Kocaeli, Turkey, competing at the Series A in Kocaeli and then the World University Combat Games in Samsun.
“Raukawa had a bye in the first round, then beat Iran in the second, scoring a head kick to win with just 10 seconds left in the fight! Missed out to Ukraine in the third round, a really strong fighter. The Ukranian lost in the semi final, and then went on to fight for the bronze medal.
It's hard for a coach to not be biased. But Raukawa was really unlucky at the World Uni Combat Games, with a hard first round against a local Turkish fighter who was favoured by the referees. You can even see other coaches/athletes in the background believing he should have scored his takedown!”
The last two competitions in Turkey were Raukawa's first world events in the Senior (18 yrs+) category. Despite being younger and less experienced than his opponents, he more than demonstrated he was up to the level. It's back to the Dojo for the rest of this year, then I'm looking forward to what we can achieve in 2023!
Commonwealth Club Championships - Birmingham
12 September 2022
Eledon Ing 🥇, Elemer Ing 🥈
Amazing results from the boys! Both Elemer and Eledon fought incredibly well, doing Toatakai and their country proud. Looking forward to seeing them and their medals back in the dojo soon!
Oceania Champs
15 June 2022
What an incredible trip to New Caledonia. This was a first international event since 2019, and not oly was it a lot of fun, Toatakai abosutely killed it on the mats!
In the open weight divisions, our team took 🥇, 🥈 & 🥉 in the 18+ Male, 🥇 in 16/17 Female and 🥇 in 16/17 Junior Male. These results firmly cemented us as the strongest club on the continent!
Check out the video here.
Team for the Oceania Championships
23 May 2022
Team Toatakai has 9 players that will be representing club and country at the 21st Oceania Championships in New Caledonia on the 4-6th of June.
This is the first international event we have been able to compete in since 2019. All the best to the players, who been training so hard throughout a couple fo difficult years!
Dallas Lee, Eledon Ing, Elemer Ing, Keilana Lee, Liam Singer, Lola Hennessey, Raukawa Jefferies, Sam Crawford.
Auckland Classic
17 May 2022
Congratulations to the following students for their performaces at the Auckland Classic Competition;
Raukawa Jefferies, Alysha Chong, Keilana Lee, Eledon Ing, Dallas Lee, Elemer Ing, Sharvin Bhusal and Charisse Lee.
NZ Cup - Hamilton
17 February 2022
Some clips of Team Toatakai at the NZ Cup last Saturday . Congratiolations to our competitors!
Lola Hennessey 🥇 16/17 Years Open
Sam Crawford 🥇 16/17 Years Open, 🥇 U21 Open
Liam Singer 🥇 18+ Heavy weight, 🥈 18+ Open
Raukawa Jefferies 🥇 18+ Open, 🥈 Heavy weight
Round Robin
26 March 2022
Awesome work from the students today at our Round Robin club comp. Really exciting to finally be able to throw an event! Great to have so many beginners throw on some pads and have a go as well. We’re prepared for a good year!
Scholorship for Lola
17 February 2022
Congratulations to Lola Hennessey for winning the Adastra Scholorship - providing financial and mentoring support to extraordinary young New Zealanders in their pursuit of excellence.
Lola earned this scholorship for her dedication to the sport and achievements in competition, including 5th place at the last Junior World Championships in Santiago, Chile!
Check out more here - https://adastra.org.nz/recipient/lola-hennessey-sport/
2021 Prizegiving and Xmas Party
11 December 2021
Awesome finish to a great year at Toatakai. Despite another year of Covid, our club had a really successful year! Congratulations to the winners of our end of year prizes!
Student of the Year - Nate Whitehead
High Performance Player of the Year - Elemer & Eledon Ing
Club Member of the Year - Tim O’Brien
New Mirrors at the Dojo
16 September 2021
Great week of training this week having everyone back in the dojo!
Just before lockdown we had an amazing donation from CKL for an additional mirror! A massive thanks to them as it's allowed us to really use the most of our Dojo. Please check out CKL for help with Planning. Surveying, Engineering and Environmental advice for property owners and developers.
Another shout out to Ara Studios, who donated the other mirrors many years ago! You can check out their fantastic Yoga studio just down the road from us, 16 Duncan Road.
Lockdown Online Trainings
20 August 2021
Another Lockdown shut down our club again for about 6 weeks, but that didn’t stop us training! Well done to all the students for keeping up their training while locked at home. Members, you can find all the videos from the trainings on the ‘Members Area’ of the website.
Olympic Tent Visit
1 August 2021
Representing Karate at the NZHQ Olympic tent on the waterfront today!
Best of luck to Andrea Anacan, who will represent NZ for Kata in Tokyo on Thursday! Also to our good friend Tsuneari Yahiro in the -75kg Kumite.
Catch all the Karate events at the Olympics on the 5th, 6th and 7th of August!
NZ Cup Results
3 July 2021
Awesome results from Team Toatakai in Auckland last weekend. More important than results, great improvement from all the players after training so hard this term. But highlight of the comp has to go the awesome Toatakai haircut from Petar!
Lola Hennessey - 🥇 16/17 Open
Liam Singer - 🥇 U21 Open, 🥈 Senior +75kg
Raukawa Jefferies - 🥇 Senior +75kg, 🥈 U21 Open, 🥈 Senior Open
Barney Gill - 🥇 Senior -75kg, 🥇 Senior Open
Alysha Chong - 🥇 8-9 Kata, 🥉 8-9 -30kg
Petar Sigurnjak - 🥉 10-11 Intermediate Kata
Sophie Cordiner - 🥉 8-9 +30kg
Keilana Lee - 🥈 10-11 -40kg
Elemer Ing - 🥇 10/11 -40kg
Eledon Ing - 🥈 10-11 -40kg
Duncan Pugh - 🥇 12/13 Intermediate -45kg
KJ Smith - 🥉 6/7 +30kg
Dallas Lee - 🥈 8/9 -35kg
Team kumite - 🥉 6-9 years (Charisse Lee, Sophie Cordiner, Alysha Chong
NZ Cup Team
26 June 2021
Toatakai is sending our biggest ever team to an event - the NZ Cup in Auckland on 10/11 July. We have 22 players competiting, with three kids on competition debut.
Keep an eye out on the Website and Facebook to see how everyone goes. Bes luck to all the Toatakai Team!
NZ Open - Christchurch
26 March 2021
Toatakai players at the NZ Open 2021 in Christchurch .
Incredible results from our team, returning with 8 gold medals from our team of 14. Also took the gold, silver and bronze in both the 10-11 and the 18+ divisions!
Not just greast results, more importantly a lot of improvement. A well deserved rest for the team before back into it next week .
CNI Open - A Great Event!
11 April 2021
We’ve just ran the CNI Open Karate Tournament which was a huge success! This provided a great event for our players and the region, while also serving as fundraising for the club.
Events like this are only made possible by the amazing volunteers we had on the day. Parents of players that have competed for years, along with those that have just started, got amongst to help run tables and sales on the day. A huge thank you to the volunteers and all those that donated baking on the day! This was the clubs first time hosting a competition. With the success of the event, we are excited to continuing hosting more in the future.
Congratiolations to our 17 strong team that competed as well! Special mention to three players that stepped up for their first ever event - Nathan Baker, Danielle Seiga and Nate Whitehead.
We had two outstanding performances on the day - Nate Whitehead taking gold in his first ever Competition, and Elemer Ing who managed to win in the age division above his own!
New Mats!
16 March 2021
Exciting day as we lay down brand new mats at the Dojo. Just the first of lots of great changes planned for this year at the club!
New Club Name and Logo!
24 February 2021
We are excited to announce our new name and Logo for Toatakai Karate. Toatakai is a combination of 3 words - toa, tai, and sekai. ‘Toa’ is a Te Reo Maori word that translates to ‘warrior’ or ‘courage/bravery’. ‘Tai’ is Japanese meaning ‘versus’, and ‘Sekai’ is also Japanese, meaning ‘the world’. So Toatakai essentially means us, the brave New Zealand Warrior, taking on the world.
This symbolises many things, including Karate itself, for when we have to defend ourselves taking on bullies. It also represents the idea of the underdog or David vs Goliath, the courage to stand up to life’s challenges, and even in the very literal sense, our club’s athletes’ taking on the best Karate players in the world in competition.
The logo represents a ‘Torii Gate’, which is a Japanese structure found at the entrance to Shrines. This gate represents the connection between our club in New Zealand and the roots of traditional Karate in Japan.