Karate has always been a way of protection against enemy forces.

Today, the practice of karate is still used for its original purpose, self-defense.

That's the ideal the Penn State Karate Club (PSKC) enforces everyday when training at the University's dojo or even when stepping up to other students from across the globe to battle in competitions like this past weekend's 2009 Isshin-ryu World Karate Association Championships.

More than 400 competitors from across the world visited Pittsburgh last week to prepare for the IWKA Championships that took place Saturday in the Hilton's Grand Ballroom and the PSKC faced competition from across the country, including teams from Texas and Maine. Some participants traveled all the way from India to compete.

The tournament, hosted by The Pittsburgh Academy of Karate, kicked off with opening ceremonies at about 9:15 a.m. and continued into the late evening with students and alumni of the PSKC taking home a total of 21 awards.

Four club members, who are well-trained black belts and placed first in one or more of their events throughout the day, are eligible to compete in the Grand Championship, according to coach Jaeson Koszarsky.

"Even those that didn't bring trophies home, we had people who were placing fourth and fifth in their divisions. [For] some people, it was real close, it was as much of a 0.1 difference in scoring between third and fourth place and a second and third," Koszarsky said.

Head instructor, Dane Sutton, felt that his students did a fine job of representing Penn State and said he's glad they will be recognized for the work the put into preparing for and competing in the this year's world championships.

Koszarsky, who coached and competed in the tournament, earned first place in both weapon forms and empty-hand forms.

"It was really great to compete against other schools that practice the same style of karate and I was really proud of everyone's performance throughout the day," Koszarsky said.

Although the tournament was still a good distance away from Penn State, Koszarsky said that Pittsburgh is the closest location the tournament has been held at in about 20 years.

Because the event was open to the public, some of the students' families and friends from Pittsburgh came out to support the club.

"It's nice to have something like that close to home and for some of our students they may have grown up in the Pittsburgh area. It's as close to a home field advantage as we're going to get," Koszarsky said. "We usually have a strong turnout when we go and compete at something like this."

With no prior karate training before joining the club, Caroline Slothour (junior-Japanese and classics and ancient Mediterranean studies) made her first appearance at the IWKA and grabbed the women's division first-place spot in free-sparring.

"I was really surprised. I hadn't expected to do that well," Slothour said. "I kind of felt good about the training I received and it was nice to be able to show that my training was as good as or compared to the training other people were receiving."

But according to Slothour, her success wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

"It was pretty tough. There were people from all over the world. It was definitely tougher than anything we've been up against before," she said.

Koszarsky described one student as being one of the best at the competition and having "lightning fast feet."

Alumnus Joe Kotanchik, who had a lot of firsts in the tournament, made his first visit to the IWKA.

He came home with two first-place awards in free-sparring and weapon forms and earned second place in empty-hand forms.

"I just try and do the best I can," Kotanchik said. "I knew a couple parts where I definitely messed up and I'm definitely looking forward to getting back to training and fixing those little issues I have with myself."