Brookfield natives and brothers Clinton and Seth Murphy both brought home first place trophies in the 29th annual U.S. Capitol Classics Martial Arts Tournament. The tournament took place over the weekend of August 4 and 5 and involved breaking as much wood and concrete as possible.
Clinton Murphy is a 4th degree black belt in the Filipino art of Kun Tao and a three-time world heavyweight breaking champion. Clinton, owner of the martial arts school in Brookfield, hadn’t competed in over three years before the tournament.
“It felt great to win after not competing in years,” Clinton said.
The win was especially gratifying because he was the second competitor and had to wait through the rest of the competition, watching to see if the other competitors would be able to break more concrete blocks than he had. It is an advantage to be farther back in the order, according to Clinton, because then you know how many blocks you need to break to beat those who went before you. However, nobody was able to best Clinton’s bar of 10 concrete blocks and he placed first in the Heavyweight Power Concrete Division of the USBA/WBA Regional Breaking Championships.
When asked how he trained for this event, Clinton replied that these days he trains by training his students. Helping his students get ready to compete and teaching them what he’s learned over the years is enough to keep him in top form.
Seth Murphy, who is an assistant instructor at the academy, took first place in the Lightweight Division, which includes black belts under 200 pounds, by breaking nine blocks using an overhand elbow strike.
Two other students at the Academy of Fighting Arts also placed in their divisions. Jesse Dunlap, a recent Brookfield High School (BHS) graduate, who is a purple belt, competed in an under-belt division. He took first place by breaking seven blocks. Dunlap’s mother, Mary Kennedy, also competed, using several different strikes to break multiple spaced stacks of wood to earn second place in the Creative Division.
