Upcoming Tournament

"Tournament time" is generally springtime, but there also tends to be a fall tournament or two most years.

This year is no exception, and the tournament is this weekend and it's in a nearby city a few hours away from home.

I actually prefer tournaments that are out of town vs the ones that are in town - when I can retreat to my own home afterwards, I'm much less prone to be social with anyone, whereas when I'm stuck in a hotel somewhere (even if I have my car with me), I have nowhere to hide and no computer to while my time away on anyway, so I socialize, and that ends up making the whole experience a lot more fun.

I didn't really start to compete on a regular basis until I had attained the rank of 3rd kyu, brown belt, because my original club (where I trained to 5th kyu, purple belt) didn't have a group that travelled to tournaments, and therefore I only went into one tournament, at 7th kyu (orange belt), because it came to our city. It was only when I moved into a larger centre and started training at a much more advanced dojo that I started entering into 3-5 tournaments a year.

Not only did I get involved in competing (both in kata and kumite), but I also got involved in officiating, because at 3rd kyu brown belt, I was high enough rank to participate in the seminars and actively act as a corner judge during tournaments for colored belts, right away. And, as with any volunteer position, there was always plenty of need and practice for me every tournament.

Now that I've attained shodan/black belt, I can increase the level of my officiating capacity to include corner judging for black belts and centre officiating for colored belts, and since I've done about 10-12 tournaments strictly as a colored-belt corner judge, I'm looking forward to these new challenges.

This tournament, competitively, is the first time I've entered as a black belt as well, which is another reason why this tournament is going to be an interesting one for me. I'm competing with a kata I've never done in competition before (Jutte), against people I may never have competed against before, and I'm making the jump from brown belt kumite (fighting) to black belt kumite as well. This jump is a huge one psychologically from my visual experience of comparing brown belt fighting to black belt fighting.

From what I've heard, political BS that is going on between a few different clubs in our association may cause attendance to be poor at this tournament which would suck, but we'll see what happens. Politics are always around us and have been particularly charged for the past 8 months, I'm so glad that although I know full well what is going on, it really doesn't affect me directly like it does others close to me in karate circles.

So, wish me luck, I'll be sure to report back on how it all went :)