Tournament

It's been a big day of karate!

Today was the WYKKO's National Championship in Atlanta, our traditional tournament.  Basically, this is a closed tournament where all of the organizers, judges, and competitors were from World Yoshukai Karate, which amounts to a pretty excellent experience.

So, you may wonder, why have a closed tournament?  Well, the WYKKO has four big tournaments a year:  the WYKKO National Championship in Atlanta, Superfights in Oxford, The Sunshine Classic in Panama City, and the Southeast Regional in Dothan.  So, we have one closed tournament, one full-contact tournament, and two open tournaments a year.  Open tournaments are a lot of fun and a great bonding experience for practitioners of different styles, but the major benefit of a closed tournament is the competitors know that they are being judged on a WYKKO scale.  The judges know the kata the competitors will draw from, the fighting will be organized and scored in impeccable Yoshukai style, and for one day of competition, we're looking at and experiencing all things World Yoshukai.  It's a pretty amazing time.

 

So, for me, this was a new experience because I was still a kyu grade at the last traditional tournament.  Since I have a recital this Wednesday, I did not compete to protect the vocal instrument, but I still learned a ton from judging competition all day.  I got to sit for 3 kata and weapons divisions apiece, two point sparring divisions, and four semi-knockdown divisions.  And prior to this, I had very little experience judging.  To be perfectly honest, I still have very little experience, but I have a world of a lot more than I had a few hours ago.

 

One of the especially nice factors this year was a short small-group clinic Shihan Torruella gave us right before we started judging.  It was brief but full of practical, no-nonsense information.  A big thing that I'm learning about judging is that with organized, trained judging, not only does the tournament flow better, but the competitors can feel good about competing in a clean, professionally-run event.  This was particularly important when it came down to the fighting divisions.  Disorganized point-fighting takes FOREVER, and is really not that much fun to watch or sometimes participate in.  Organized, professionally-run point fighting is fast-paced, exciting, and keeps the competitors on their toes.

 

But with the shop talk aside, what a tournament comes down to is the overall spirit of those competing.  Athens Yoshukai had a great showing today, and although we were in smaller numbers this year, the group was just as eager to help with setup and breakdown as always.  We got some solid feedback, and best of all, we got to spend the day with our fellow WYKKO martial artists. 

 

Now, we get to look forward to our weekend of training with Master Culbreth, and then from there, on to Summer Camp!  OSU!