Tiger Schulmann's celebrates local winners of Challenge of Champions

Monroe — Students from Tiger Schulmann’s Martial Arts Center in Monroe represented their school on Sunday, June 4, in the Challenge of Champions, a martial arts competition at the Mennen Sports Arena in Morristown. The event hosted over 1,600 martial arts students of all ages, backgrounds and belt ranks, who participated in a head-to-head, dual-discipline competition before a sold out crowd of over 3,000 spectators, and an additional 500 volunteer staff. “Challenge of Champions is such an important event, because it gives my students a specific competitive goal to train for. By providing both motivation, and a more challenging setting than normal day-to-day training, the experience is very positive for those students who decide to compete,” said Sensei Montes, head instructor of the center in Monroe. “The discipline, confidence and skills my students gain from preparing for such a demanding competition is well worth all of their hard work and dedication. In the end, they’re all champions.” Challenge of Champions was introduced in 1996, and has become the largest martial arts tournaments of its kind in the United States. The areas of competition included submission grappling and free fighting, for both juniors (ages 15 and under) and adults (all ages). The grappling event, with nearly 1,300 participants in various divisions, is one of the largest and fastest growing disciplines in martial arts. It is similar to traditional wrestling in its clinch and ground fighting techniques, with the key difference of aiming for a “tap out” submission, using various choke holds and joint locks. Due to the fact that most real life fight situations end up on the ground, this is a very practical and effective form of self-defense. Winners from the Monroe center in the submission grappling competition include: 1st Place: Amanda Krutchkoff. 2nd Place: Justin Lorentzen, Gregory Grimes, Justin Benbow, and Christine Torres. 3rd Place: Doug Grimes, and Samantha Yu. The free fighting competition, with nearly 1,000 students competing in various divisions, is a fast-paced sparring competition with participants in full protective gear, using strategic combinations of punches, kicks and blocks to cleanly land blows on their opponent and out-score them. Winners from the Monroe center in the free fighting competition include: 1st Place: Amanda Krutchkoff, Danny Paley, Marc Torres, and Alex Zhukovskiy. 2nd Place: Aaron Krutchkoff. 3rd Place: Michael Colern, Tristen Santiago, Carolyn Spann-Vega, and Daniel Zhukovskiy. Tiger Schulmann’s has 41 schools in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Florida. Instructors have trained in excess of 60,000 students nationwide. For information, call 1-800-52-TIGER or visit www.tsk.com.