Growing up, I never thought of myself as a sportsman. I rode my bike, played badminton occasionally with my mom, and certainly did a lot of swimming as a youth, but I was never involved with a sport except as a spectator. So, when the karate tournaments came up after getting our blue belts, I wanted to make sure my kids got the experience of competing in a sport. At first, I was happy to just enter the kids into the tournament, but my husband pointed out that we started this as a family, so we ALL need to compete. Hmm…
Before I was ready to jump off of that cliff, I decided I wanted to attend the open karate tournament that our federation sponsors. Master Landry usually runs the tournaments and this one was no exception. Tournaments are organized into belt and age divisions as well as the type of competition. This tournament had weapons, sparring, forms, and breaking divisions with schools from all over Connecticut. Call me obsessed, but it was fascinating to watch the tournament especially with the variety of divisions. The highlight of the day was when one of the instructors decided that the judging wasn’t fair and approached Master Landry in an aggressive posture. We were at least 100 feet away in the top of the bleachers, and knew he was toast if he continued. Luckily some other black belts stepped in and held her back and escorted him out.
We learned a lot that day: 1) Never, ever get Master Landry mad unless you have a suicidal tendency, 2) When breaking boards, have someone who knows how to hold the board; actually hold the board, and lastly 3) always wear shin guards when sparring. The worst injury that day was when two black belt teens were sparring. They hit each other in the shins at the same time, not once, but twice in the same match; the result was that both were on the ground holding their shins. Until that day, I hadn’t worn my shin guards. Now I won’t spar without them.
The next tournament was a month away and was a Cheezic Federation tournament for Forms and Breaking. I decided, What the heck, I’ll sign up for it if the rest of the family does. It didn’t seem that scary, and there might have been an itsy bitsy bit of wanting to prove to myself that I could do well in a competition.
Come see what I've added to the Karate Forum as a new topic on Tournaments.
During that month, the instructors were preparing us for the competition which involved prepping us for walking into the ring, introducing yourself to the judges and then performing your form or break. We decided to buy some wood to practice with. Two very large shipping boxes ought to do it; we like to break lots of wood. I decided early on what breaks I wanted to perform and just worked on building up the amount of boards that I could break.
At home, I went up to 4 boards for the palm heel and 5 boards for the axe kick, but for the tournament went down to 3 boards for the palm heel and 4 boards for the axe kick. After some nasty attempts with the higher number of boards, I decided that it probably wouldn’t impress the judges if I broken something and had to be rushed to the hospital. My husband couldn’t settle on the type of break he wanted to do until literally 4 days before the tournament. The kids had decided that they didn’t need to sign up for the breaking competition, and settled on just doing the forms. That was fine, more boards for my husband and I to break!
Judges are impressed when you show power during a form and one way of doing that is by having a strong beginning yell. Since this is one of my weak areas, I started practicing my yell. After class I would try out different yells while in the car and ask my family what they thought, but let’s just say that I couldn’t even get a flinch out of my husband while he was driving. Then one day I was practicing my form and yelled a profanity after screwing up the form. It was a pretty powerful yell, so I tried out all of the cuss words that I knew while practicing the form. I sounded like a "kick your bottom", "without a backwards glance" Bad A$$. I finally found my yell, but needed to weigh my options here; would the judges be impressed with my powerful strong yell, or offended by my strong words. Since there are kids present at the tournaments, I decided it would have to be my rated-G yell that would have to do. I’ll save my Bad A$$ yell for idiot drivers.
On the big day, we got there early, paid our entrance fee, and waited and waited and waited. This gave me plenty of time to get extremely nervous and noticed that Master Needham (our top ranking instructor) was judging. I remarked to my husband that I felt sorry for anyone being judged by him. Our littlest was up first and didn’t get in the group that Master Needham was judging. She performed Pyung Ahn Cho Dan, and yelled at all the right places and performed the form perfectly for her age. Afterward, the judges line up the competitors and say what they ranked. My little sweety beat their pants off and got first place!
Next up was my oldest daughter who didn’t have anyone to compete against in the blue belt rank and also didn’t get in Master Needham’s group. Master Landry ensured the judges that she was able to compete against the green belts, and proved her right. My oldest was performing Pyung Ahn E Dan, and is a natural when it comes to forceful yells and performing karate forms. Not wanting to be bested by her little sister, she had to outperform and ended up getting first place against green belts! Ok, the kids have set the bar pretty high for us parents. My husband and I would never live it down if we didn’t do at least somewhat well. The kids bounded off to go collect their very first trophies.
My husband’s division was called next and he didn’t get in Master Needham’s group either. There were a ton of people in his group. While they were organizing his group, I heard my division being called. I wished him well and went over to my ring, and Oh Looky! Guess who I have as head judge!? Master Needham, of course! Just my luck, I was the only one in my family to get Master Needham as head judge. Ok, reality check, I’m competing for the first time at the age of 37 in a sport that I only started 7 months previous against other women who were my age, but were apprentice black belts, red belts, and one green belt, and to top it off my head judge is the top dog in our school.
What was I thinking? What was I thinking? Is it too late to sneak off now? Yep, Master Needham just noticed that I’m in the next group of competitors. Rats! Maybe I should use the cuss words. No, bad idea, but it would make me feel better. I sat there with my stomach all twisted up as I saw everyone else perform very difficult forms, and then was called up. Ok, I knew that I didn’t perform the form really well and I attribute it all to nerves, but ended up with 4th place. Of course, there were only four of us competing in my division. When it came to the breaks, I did better since I was able to pour all of the nervous energy out and break something with it. For breaking, I got 2nd place which made me feel a whole lot better.
Well, the kids stole the stage that day. When I got back to my husband, I found out it’s true that opposites attract. He placed 2nd in forms and 4th in breaking. Ok I’ll try anything once, but I’m not all that eager to sign up for another tournament any time soon. I don’t think my stomach can handle it. However, if the kids want to add to their trophy collection, I’ll be more than happy to be the spectator again.
- Wendy Austin
Please keep reading! Below are some links to my past blogs as well as a link to the new community forum where YOU too can post your own comments and experiences with karate.
· Karate - Martial Arts Community Forum (IMA students and parents have a special area in this forum to discuss classroom ideas.)
