Craig Kairis still laughs when he thinks about the friendly father-son battles he’s had with his son Alex over the years.

Many times, Alex would playfully challenge his father – and every time, without fail, he’d end up on the ground, thanks to Craig’s background in judo.

“He was 13, 14 years old, bigger and stronger than me, and I could still drop him in a parking lot,” Craig said with a laugh. “I used to joke with him, saying ‘Hey Alex, which way do you want to fall this time?'”

Eventually, Alex got tired of falling.

The Newport senior, a standout linebacker for the Knights who plans to walk on at the University of Washington, came to his father one day last summer with a simple request – he wanted to learn judo.

So the Kairis’s went to Craig’s old stomping grounds, the Seattle Dojo, to get Alex started.

Then fate intervened.

As the pair walked into the dojo, Craig immediately spotted a familiar face. His old sensei, Fred Sato, was sitting in the dojo, watching others go through practice. The same man who took the elder Kairis to the rank of brown belt happened to be in the dojo after years away from judo.

“If you believe in fate, that’s what that was,” Alex said. “All the moons and stars lined up for me to see him that night.”

Sato, 82, is a long-time judo practitioner and fifth-degree black belt who has trained multiple national champions as well as Bruce Lee. “Coach”, as Craig Kairis calls him, first recruited the older Kairis when he was a sophomore on the Rainier Beach High School varsity football team. Several members of the team turned out for judo and Sato trained them, and Kairis, for several years.

It was only fitting he would be the one to train Alex. The younger Kairis began to work with Sato multiple times per week both at the Seattle Dojo and at his home in Steward Park.

“Coach really took Alex under his wing,” Craig said. “I really think he saw something in Alex. He likes his work ethic.”

Kairis also began training with Bert Mackey out of the Budokan dojo in Seattle, a well-known dojo that attracts several black belts and other “badasses”, as Kairis describes many of the judo players who train there.

Mackey, a 19-time Master’s level goal medalist, has coached the USA Pan-Am team in the past and provides a nice compliment to Sato in terms of Kairis’ judo development.

“I have the perfect storm of coaching,” Alex said. “They have a gold mine of information.”

“He’s got a lot of ability,” Sato said of Alex. “He’s shown a lot of potential and done very well so far. But he’s still a rookie.”

A rookie who has shown quite the aptitude for the sport thus far. Judo, for the uninitiated, is an extremely physical sport. There are three ways to win a judo match: choking an opponent out until they tap, pinning them for 25 seconds or, the most common, landing a throw. A judo throw that is an official throw must feature both the thrower and the throwee landing just right. When these moves are performed correctly, the judo player is awarded an ippon – “one point” – and the match ends. A waza-ari is a half-point that is awarded for a throw that does not have enough power or control to be awarded an ippon, or a hold that lasts twenty seconds. Two waza-ari points constitute the full point needed for a judo win. A yuko is a lower grade of point that counts only as a tie-breaker.

If the scores are identical at the end of a match, the match goes into a sudden death situation where the first judo player to score any points wins.

With its physical nature, it’s no wonder the linebacker has excelled at judo.

“It’s man versus man – just how tough are you?,” Alex said. “You decide whether you win or lose. You can’t blame a missed block or a certain play. It’s all up to you.”

In his short time in the sport thus far, Kairis has racked up some big accomplishments in his Gi, the traditional judo uniform. He’s risen to the rank of blue belt (only brown and black are higher) and captured a state title in late February. Kairis took first place in the blue belt division of the Washington State Judo Championship on Feb. 20. He also came in second place in the brown/black division as the only blue belt participating in the division. Kairis went 5-1 overall on the day.

“It was all really sublime,” he said. “It wasn’t just luck because I was doing the fundamentals that I’d been taught.”

Kairis followed that up with a third place finish in the 220-pound division of the USA Junior Nationals, held in Spokane March 12-14. The top-two finishers were both members of the USA Junior World team. In his final match, Kairis needed just nine seconds to defeat his opponent to earn third.

“One day when we were training, sensai Sato said that he really wanted another national champion,” Alex said. “That’s something that I’ve been trying to live up to. This national tournament was a place I could make a name for myself.”

Alex followed up that with a second-place finish in the Open Division at the same tournament, a division he entered simply to get more competition.

“Seeing as how I’ve faced these nationally-ranked guys now, I don’t have to be nervous any more,” Alex said. “I’m not going to face any better competition then these guys. It’s a new perspective for me.”

The big-time tournament performances have not been the only highlight.

A quick look at the film points to Kairis’ aptitude in the sport.

In one match on April 3 at a Mercer Island tournament, Kairis approaches his opponent, ties him up and quickly tosses him to the mat for the win. Barely five seconds pass between the handshake and Kairis’ win.

“I barely got the camera on,” the viewer can hear Craig Kairis exclaim.

Alex won first place in both Men’s Novice, blue belt and below as well as Men’s Senior, brown/black belt.

It’s also important to remember that Alex is a linebacker at heart. During a small tournament in Portland, Kairis faced off against an opponent 90 pounds heavier than himself at 300 pounds. Halfway through the match, the opponent head-butted Kairis on accident. Kairis, admittedly mad, went right at the bigger opponent and quickly put him down and pinned him.

“The linebacker in me came out right then,” Alex said with a laugh. “That was a football thing, not judo. Just pure adrenaline.”

For now, Kairis plans to continue his training in judo and has set a goal to become a member of the U.S. Junior World team and possibly the Olympic team, an opportunity of a lifetime, he said. Once Kairis turns 19 next year, he’ll be considered a senior and will be fighting those of any age.

“This is my last year to really make an impact on the junior end of it,” Kairis said. “I fell in love with it the first week I was in it and this is a life-long thing I can do.”

One other benefit to judo? Dad no longer has the upper hand.

“He used to be able to flip me anytime, anywhere,” Alex said. “Now that I know my way around judo, I could do the same thing to him. It’s kind of satisfying.”

“He loves throwing me down now,” Craig said. “You should see the smile on his face now – he’ll say ‘dad, don’t even try it.'”