Was "The Force" with me?

This weekend I travelled back down south for the Army Martial Arts Competition. I spent my teenage years and early twenties in the area and have both family and friends very local.
I stayed with Michael, who was my best man at my wedding , his partner Suasan and their two young children James and Owen.
After a meal, a game of cards, a couple of lagers and a bottle of wine (all essential pre- competition preparation). Susan said that they had prepared the spare room and the boys and her had decided that I should have the "Stars Wars" quilt cover and hopefully the force would be with me the following day.

My inspiration to compete is to improve my own personal performance. It is nice to win a trophy or medal now and again, but for me if I have pushed myself and performed well, that is enough.
As a 48 year old part time solider, I was putting myself up against younger, fitter and more experienced karateka, I was the oldest karateka there by quite a few years. It is good to put yourself out of your comfort zone now and again to improve your own karate.

In Kata I performed Hangetsu in the first round and made it through to the second round. For my second kata I performed Kanku Sho, I manged to get to the end of both kata without suffering from the "frozen kata syndrome" that normally plagues me. I scored probably just under half way down the rankings, well out of the medals but had performed better than I have ever done before.
The Kumite was fought in two Pools of 4 on a round robin, the top 2 from each pool going into a fight off. The other three dan grades in my pool were all members of the Army Karate team and two of them also compete for England. I was very, very pleased , to loose 2 and win 1.

I had a long drive North to Bradford to take part in the City's 10k. The troop from Bradford had decided to raise some monies for charity by each of us carrying an additional 20Kg as we went round. We were paced round by our PTI at a forced march to complete the 10 k in 1hour and 31 minutes, very close to the back markers who were getting worried that we were catching them.

Thank you Susan, I think the force might have been with me after all. Perhaps I can make a booking for the Star Wars suite for next year as well?

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AMAA Competition 15th March 2008

Above: Tetley Gym - Fox Lines - Army School of Physical Training

The Army Martial Arts Assocation competition was last Saturday, a fair trip from North Yorkshire but well worth the 450 mile round trip.

In the photo above you see Karate in the foreground, Kendo to the centre and Taekwondo on the far mat, a true celebration of martial arts.

The karate was to WKF rules, under the direction of Washinkai's founder and chairman Shihan Chris Thompson 8th Dan. It was nice to see so many competitors this year, I hope this is a contuining trend.

I was dissappointed with my overall performance, but I did benefit a great deal from attending. By competting I have come away with some clear challanges for the future:

1. Prepare, prepare and prepare to prevent piss poor performance.


2. Loose some of that excess weight, WKF rules to 8 points in kumite nearly killed me.


3. Focus on the Karate core kata and park the "nice to haves", I must concentrate on Bassai, Jion, Kanku, Empi and just one advanced kata (at the moment).
   

I have started to work on Nijushiho, still needs loads and loads of work but is slowly progressing. I thaught I would have a go but then found out that there would be two rounds of personal selected kata for Dan grades, I selected Bassai Dai and managed to freeze half way through. Not quite sure why, lack of concentration, too much concentration?

My string on Karate Underground "TheFrozen Kata" has proved quite popular. I hope you find it interesting.

I am sure that you will find that I will introduce a few of the replies into our training shortly. If your interested please follow the link below:

The frozen Kata

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