RHODES TAKES SEVENTH NATIONAL ATLANTA MEET 1973:
ATLANTA GEORGIA
Last second scoring pushed Dana Rhodes ahead of Michael Robbins to take the Heavy Weight title in the Seventh Annual National Karate Championship of 1973.

Robbins scored first in the heavyweight title match. His punch left Rhodes reeling. But Rhodes shook off the effects of the blow and scored with a solar plexis front Kick that caught Robbins by surprise. Throughout the tournament most other black belts favored the roundhouse and the sidekick.

With the scores 1-1, and time running out, Rhodes and Robbins again clashed violently. At the split second that time was called, Rhodes landed a stunning reverse punch that won the match. Displeased, Robbins protested because the point was called after time. But the judges ruled that the blow was in motion when time was called, and so it still counted. Rhodes then went against his close friend Pat Duncan, the lightweight winner to battle for the grand championship.

Personal friendship outside the ring was not at all evident. Even though they both came from the same dojo, Olympic Karate Studios of Sandy Springs, Ga. The match began with a size-up-stalk as each opponent anticipated the others first move. This intensity of match play is literally a game of inches, as they crept towards one another. Instantaneously, both attacked, Pat with a sidekick, and Dana with a front kick. The Center Judge calls a clash...these first moments emulate the stretch of the match, with both competitors "going for it"! Pat with his fast hands, back knuckles and lunge punches, and Dana with his rocket front kick, that seemed to cross the floor forever....The match was scored at 2-2, the final set, attack was initiated by Rhodes, with his front kick, Pat maneuvered but could not evade, and Dana Rhodes became the 7th National Tae Kwon Do Champion, of the United States as Grand Champion of Fighting. Pat Duncan wins kata Grand Champion and lightweight black belt division. Dana Rhodes wins the heavyweight blackbelt division, and the fighting Grand Championship of the Tournament.

AND IT'S A LUNGE ROUND HOUSE TO THE CHIN
BY
NATIONAL KARATE CHAMPION DANA RHODES

Dana Rhodes Takes Heavyweight Title & The Grand Championship of The Tournament
Pat Duncan Wins Lightweight Fighting & Form Championship

Karate--Oriental Art Now Top Sport
By Joyce Gemmill

Two Sandy Springs Karate Experts captured National championship titles last week in the 1973 National Karate Championships held at DeKalb College.
The spectacular event which drew hundreds of contestants who participated in divisions ranging from pee-wee to men's heavyweight, was sponsored by Yoo Jin Kim, the eighth degree black belter from Korea.
Walking off with the top titles were Dana Rhodes who won the grand championship title and Pat Duncan, winner of the lightweight form contest.
Rhodes and Duncan, along with Ray Klingenberg, are also the owners of Olympic, a very successful Karate school in Sandy Springs located at 6142 Roswell Rd. Another Olympic school is located at 5151 Buford Highway in North Atlanta.
Duncan, a slim, six footer who with Rhodes and Klingenberg look like the heroes of an 007 movie, are three of the fastest young men in the country-in the art of Karate that is. All are holders of the highly coveted black belt.
As Karate continues to increase in popularity with Americans of all ages, the Sandy Springs "Big Three," find themselves working around the clock six days a week with classes for every member of the sports-minded family--even mom.
We're seeing lots of kids here who have been suffering from an inferiority complex--in sports, in some area of schoolwork or just unsure of themselves", related Duncan. "After a few weeks, they gain confidence, lose a lot of their hangups and find they are playing better ball, and school marks have improved too."
The Karate experts see the Oriental art of defense as a great aid to figure control, clearing up muddled minds and generally greatly improving the individual's health as well as muscle control.
"We see Karate as a self defense weapon that is also used for sports," says Klingenberg, who says "yellow belt, 90-day wonder," usually has gained enough confidence to handle himself with some degree of assurance.
After six months, the blue belter is on a pretty sure ground in a one-man contest.
Can Karate stop a man with a gun or a knife? Yes indeed," Duncan says, but explains it would take a person with considerable experience. Disarming a knife attacker apparently is no big deal--it's all in knowing how with quickness of exacting moves the secret.
Duncan says that just about all parts of the body come into use as a weapon and that they key is agility coupled with speed and knowing the right move at the right time. Variations of the spring-kick are used along with the Japanese yell to catch an opponent off guard.
He quickly demonstrated how to disarm a man using a gun either as a bodily threat or in a hold-up. And although Karate isn't designed to kill but rather to put an opponent out of action, the individual with a good deal of experience under his black belt, would have the advantage.
Next weekend the Olympic team expects to start their Road Team exhibitions starting in Atlanta on April 28, and followed by an appearance on May 5, in Asheville, NC, 1973.

DANA RHODES (LEFT) WHEEL KICKS THROUGH PAT DUNCAN'S BLOCK.
Rhodes Won the Heavyweight Black Belt Championship and
Then Took the Grand Championship

The Atlanta Neighbor, Wednesday, April 25, 1973

National Karate Tournament
Two Black Belts Take Everything
By Charles Walker

At the Seventh Annual Karate Championships held recently at DeKalb Community College, two instructors from a school that had only been in existence for six months won everything in the black belt division.
Pat Duncan and Dana Rhodes were the two black belts who took everything in sight in their division. They are both instructors at Olympic Karate Studios, which has schools in Doraville and Sandy Springs.
Pat Duncan won the kata (formal exercise) competition and the lightweigh black belt free fighting competition. Dana Rhodes won the heavyweight black belt division.
And then both Duncan and Rhodes had to fight each other for the Grand Championship. Rhodes won the contest, buy Olympic Karate Studios won an overwhelming victory, dominating the tournament, which was sponsored by Yoo Jim Kim, a karate instructor in Decatur.
"I don't think the other competitors were in as good a physical shape as we were," stated Duncan.
Ray Klingenberg, owner of Olympic Karate Studios, amplified that statement and provided an insight into the philosophy at his school.
"Any man who ceases to improve ceases to exist," the tall Californian said.
Klingenberg, Duncan and Rhodes are all three from California. They had each studied karate before they met, but once the three karatekas had gotten together and exchanged ideas, things seemed to fall into place.
Duncan and Rhodes had both studied Taekwondo, a Korean form of karate. Pat Duncan is probably the only Caucasian beaching in the Atlanta area who has studied karate in the orient. When he was in Korea in the Air Force, Duncan began to study the martial art, and he continued it when he returned to California.
Rhodes studied under Jae Man Lee, one of the outstanding masters of the art in this country. Both Duncan and Rhodes have been practicing their art for almost eight years.
Ray Klingenberg has been studying karate for nine years. He originally studied Kenpo, a Chinese form of karate, and earned a third dan (degree) black belt.
Klingenberg also studied under Joe Lewis, national black belt champion, for five years. He learned Shorin Ryu, an Okinawan form of karate, which helped diversify his knowledge of different forms of karate.
Then Ray Klingenberg met Pat Duncan and Dana Rhodes and everything fell into place.
The three karatekas combined the forms they knew and came up with a system that is the best of several worlds.
At Olympic Karate Studios everything is specialized. Self defense techniques are taught in private lessons along with kicks, blocks and punches. The self defense techniques are Chinese. The kata and kicks are Korean.
Chinese self-defense techniques are best in the world of karate, and they are the easiest to learn, according to Klingenberg.
Then there are specialized group lessons. In one group basics and conditioning are stressed. In another group kata are stressed, and in still another group free fighting is stressed.
"Everything is oriented to the psychology of Americans," said Klingenberg. "Americans want to become as good as possible in the shortest time. Everything is engineered to do that."
At Olympic Karate Studios there is also a feeling of fraternity, according to Pat Duncan. Everyone calls everyone else, even the instructors, by their first names.
"We have real good brotherhood there," Duncan stated. "That's what makes the school so strong. We don't have any communications gap between us and our students."
And apparently, that philosophy is working. At the Doraville school, located just south of Pinetree Plaza, there are 80 students. And at the Sandy Springs school, located on Roswell Road, there are already over a hundred students.
Klingenberg said that different groups of people study karate for different reasons, but he seems especially interested in children.
In California, Klingenberg and a child psychologist worked with neurologically handicapped children, trying to teach them karate. From that experience Klingenberg learned helpful techniques for working with normal children.
Most children come to the karate schools with confidence problems. Klingenberg says that a child's self-confidence improves when he or she learns self-defense.
"Everything picks up" said Klingenberg. "Once a child gains self-confidence his school work and everything else improves."
There is even a special class for children at Olympic Karate Studios. It is a basic drill class which "creates truthfulness and honesty" within the child, according to Klingenberg, besides helping him to "face up to facts."
Women usually take karate for two reasons, the two black belts said.
One reason is for self-defense, and the other is for figure control.
Men usually come to the karate school to improve their physical condition, and most of them say, according to Klingenberg, that they "always wanted to try it."
But men, especially those whose jobs put them under stress, find an escape from stress in karate too.
"Nothing else really takes total concentration from your body and mind," Klingenberg stated, "but karate can."
With total absorption a karate class comes relaxation, he said, unlike golf or some other sport which still allows the mind to wander to personal problems.
Twenty to 25 percent of the students at Klingenberg's school are women.
"Women have all their own private facilities, if they wish," Klingenberg said.
"But most of them want to be right out there with everybody else."

PAT DUNCAN Won Kata in the Yoo Jin Kim Tournament.