By Melody Cui and Andie Liu
David Kaneda, karate instructor and coach at Japanese Karate for Competition, a karate dojo based in Cupertino, still remembers yelling at 6-year-old Trinav Chaudhuri to attack and punch his opponent at a local tournament. Filled with adrenaline, Trinav did just that: raising his arm and clocking his opponent on the head. Despite making an illegal move, David didn’t see this as a setback; rather, he praised Trinav’s lack of hesitation and fearlessness, rare in hesitant kids at their first tournament.
After countless tournaments since, David still appreciates Trinav’s listening skills.
“He's very coachable [and] he listens well — that's important,” David said. “And he’s hugely talented. He worked really, really hard to get as good as he did. So in that way, he's pretty disciplined.”
At the age of five, current junior Trinav started karate at the Okaigan organization in San Jose. Okaigan was initially a branch of a larger organization, Japan Karate Do Ryobu-Kai (JKR), headquartered in LA. After five years, Okaigan split from JKR, but Trinav stayed with JKR. As a middle schooler, Trinav drove down to train in LA every weekend. Throughout his years with karate, Trinav’s favorite part of the martial art is its combination of individual and team aspects.
“When you're competing, there's the people who support you and the other people who fight as well, so you know them,” Trinav said. “So it's a good bridge between the two, it's not like, ‘Oh, I'm always having to deal with everybody on my team.’ You have your space, you can do what you want, you can train on your own, but then you also have that support system that supports you everywhere you go.”
Trinav says he didn’t take competition seriously until he turned 12, when athletes can try out for the Junior National Team to represent the U.S. in international competitions, starting at the Pan American Championships. Previously training six to seven hours a week, he began doing karate two hours a day and took weekends off, and during the summer, trained for 15 to 16 hours a week. After months of training, Trinav competed for one of two spots on the U.S. national team, but placed “super bronze,” the medal given to an athlete who could substitute for either top two spots if necessary.
“I lost in the semi[finals] at the last second,” Trinav said. “So I [placed] super bronze but I didn't get to go [to the Pan American Championships] because the first and second place both went. So the next year [when] I was 14 as a new weight class, I was really worried because there [was] one guy in my division who had won [the Pan American Championships] that year. And he hadn't lost at nationals in two or three years.”
Even at 14, Trinav was younger and more inexperienced than the three other elite athletes at his dojo and too advanced for the little kids who were just starting karate. He mentions that, as a competitor in the lowest weight class, “featherweights,” he was unable to find a training partner that had a similar build. Due to karate’s focus on one-on-one combat, David says that this was difficult for Trinav. After Trinav’s loss at the semifinals, David’s son, Aaron Kaneda, who was a junior at MVHS at the time, and previously trained with Trinav’s older brother, Udirno Chaudhuri, decided to take Trinav under his wing and began training him.
“He was like a little brother to me so I really wanted him to at least get up there, stand on that podium, make that U.S. team, go to [the Pan American Championships] at least once,” Aaron said. “Figuring out what he has to personally work on, what his weaknesses are and improving that and just watching him grow was probably one of the best things in karate for me. Watching him slowly improve from having these techniques that were sloppy, to these techniques that were razor sharp [and] score every time was just an extreme privilege to watch.”
Aaron and Trinav trained together every day over the summer in Trinav’s garage. Ranked in the top five karate players in the U.S., Aaron’s breadth of experience was a challenge for Trinav. Regardless, Aaron says that he noticed Trinav had the fastest reflexes of anyone he’s ever met in his 10 years of karate. Ultimately, their training paid off at the final match. Trinav qualified for nationals, though not without a slight incident: he stepped out of bounds, facing possible disqualification, almost an exact repeat of the match a year prior.
“I don't know if it was luck or if it didn't actually happen but the judges didn't call the disqualification,” Aaron said. “I was extremely relieved that he finally made it, I was so proud of him for that, but I was also like, ‘As soon as we get back you're doing a million push ups for doing that. I trained you so much better than that. How could you do that?’ But definitely the first time he made the team, I, as a coach, felt so proud of him; I felt so proud of the both of us for putting in so much work and getting in there.”
When Trinav made the team, Aaron was a three time U.S. Team member who had just won the U.S. National Championship, qualifying to compete in the 2017 World Championships in Tenerife. David and Aaron both reference Trinav’s first qualification for the U.S. team as their most memorable moment of coaching him. The following year, Trinav qualified again to compete in South America.
“[Udirno, who] won the national championships, got one match away from making the team but he didn't make it,” David said. “So I really wanted Trinav to make it. It was great for him to get that experience — to go abroad and represent your country and go head to head with some of the best fighters in the world.”
Because of his karate experience, Trinav says he never gets stressed out or feels down when events don’t go his way, both in karate and in general. David agrees, characterizing Trinav as easygoing and relaxed, excluding his tension during competitions. In addition to developing this temperament, Trinav has strengthened his communication with David during tournaments.
“As I'm sitting there coaching the kids, there are things I can see that the fighter in the middle of the fight can’t see,” David said. “So it's interesting; we developed a language and rapport of talking to each other. As he’s fighting, I'm sitting on a chair on the side of his ring, calling things out and telling him things to do or things to watch out [for] strategies. We have actually developed a shorthand language that other people don't understand. So the other competitor doesn't know what I'm telling him to do.”
Left: Trinav with David during the 2019 National Championships.
David says that he has placed athletes on the U.S. teams 35 times as a coach. Trinav explains that David’s guiding role and Aaron’s fighting role were both necessary influences on him. Aaron, recognizing Trinav’s humility, emphasizes that he and his dad’s coaching roles pale to Trinav’s diligence.
“Even with my instruction, with all the strategy I gave him and with my dad doing whatever he could for him, Trin[av] is the one who really decided to put in the work, to endlessly persevere through that heartbreak of almost making the team and deciding to give it another shot,” Aaron said. “[He kept] going through all the millions of pushups I made him do because he wasn't doing this or that correctly. He's the one who really decided to put in the work, to get it done, and he got himself there — no matter what he says, I want to make sure that is absolutely clear.”
Photos courtesy of David Kaneda || Used with permission