what a great, fun day it was

Yep, indeed it was. I went to bed on Friday quite nervous, as I'd been the previous two times I'd entered in a competition. I knew my bo kata was ready to be presented, but the Quebec Open was something else, what could go wrong? While the Friday night practice had ended well, it had not gone well for all of it, giving me doubts. Then, there was the nervousness because of the sheer size of the competition. I mean 1500 competitors, that's something. I started thinking, actually overthinking things. Like how early should we show up so I could practice a bit, you know get in the mood, get the feel of my bo. At least, the day had started well, as I weighed myself to a shocking 191.5 lbs right after breakfast. I used to weigh around 206-208 around last September and the lowest I'd seen that scale show me was 193.5 *before* breakfast. I felt as light as a feather. :)

We ended up arriving at the PEPS of Université Laval at around 8:05 or so for a start of competition set to 9am. Started out nice as I kept coming accross people from my school. My main instructor first, on the way to the locker room. He told me how he was going to be judging the 13-14 underbelt ring and such, with his son and daughter scoring with him (his son is a black belt too btw). It was really nice, seeing all these people I knew, some of them black belts from my school, there to either compete or to referee or simply to watch the competition and hear them wish us well, to me and my son.

The setup was huge, seriously, 34 rings set in an indoor kind of tiny stadium with a huge stage in the middle of things. First weird thing. My ring was set behind the temporary bleachers erected on one side of that stage for the Saturday night show, and my son's rign was on the other side. This meant there would be no way for me to sneak a peek at how he was doing. Anyway, my son and I warmed up and I had him do both his forms for me, I did mine too and went my way.

I a weird way, I was kind of sad to see that only three people were entered in my 30-39 advanced underbelt class in weapons forms. I kind of wanted to show the world that I was good with it, hehe. Anyways, one thing kind of bothered me at first, and it was the size of the ring. Dang it was small!!! The head referee of our ring even joked about it and told us somethig along the lines of "don't worry about other people, strike one real good, the other will understand the meaning", it made me chuckle. Anyway, I went first of the three and surprisingly, I didn't feel as nervous as I was in the previous two competition. Then it all went very weird. I fell in a "zone". I actually remembers very little of either one of my katas (the bo one of the traditional one). I remember one moment in fact, simply the moment where I roll it over my right hand and throw it in the air and catch it back with my left hand, it was as if time stood still for a tiny moment and I told myself something like "catch it and nobody can beat you" then it it my hand right on the sweet spot and I kept going. It went really well, so well that I brought back first place!!! Sorry, no videos for you, as our second cameraman (usually my dad) couldn't come to the competition and my wife was with my son.

The womens weapons were second and it's a woman from my school that won it, that was pretty cool. She'd also won it on the day where I'd dropped my bo earlier this season. I had kind of hoped to be competing against her, but men and women were separated. Still, it was pretty cool that two people from Lévis won it in weapons.

Taditional forms were next. If you remember, my bo kata was really the main reason why I even entered the Quebec Open, but I'd decided kind of late to also enter with a traditional form. I was to present a form called Cat Two for the first time, having presented Cat One in my first two competitions. Other than me not being absolutely happy with this form, there was also another reason why I didn't feel like I stood much of a chance. There one other "Cat" form in our style called Cat Three and it is required to test for the black belt. In both of my previous competition, the top two spots had been taken by people presenting Cat Three. It's a longer form, more intricate and with more various strikes. Yet, I felt that Cat Two played within my strengths with a few kicks and many kiais. I tend to have strong, usually impressive kiais. About 5 or 6 had gone before my name was called. I watched kind of peacefully, kind of believeing that I almost had a shot at doing something nice. One or two guys presenting Cat Three were less than impressive in my eyes and one guy from another style was shaky in some stances. I did mine and again, kind of went in a zone. I remember very little of the form per se, other than seeing the scores and thinking "darn, it's not looking so bad". I came in third place out of maybe 9 competitors and this is much better than anything I thought I could do as a fairly low brown belt (still got a full year before thinking about testing for the black). 1st and 2nd place were taken by people from another style and the other 3rd (they give 1st, 2nd, then two 3rd places) was a guy presenting Cat Three. That felt kind of sweet and encouraging.

Meanwhile, my wife came to see me between my two forms, telling me that Andrew had done his bo kata and while he did it as well as he could, the other kids in the 8-9 intermediate underbelt class were simply machines next to him (in a nice way). That was kind of expected. I mean, he just turned nine and has been working the bo only since last fall. Some of them have probably started as early as when they were 6 and they've been working on some intricate forms all the while. Anyway, he still managed to finish 5th with his bo form. He then finished 3rd with his traditional form and that was really nice. It used to be a rough one for him but he's really nailing it now. Finally, he lost his first fight in kumite but they gave complimentary 5th place to all first round losers, giving him a total of two medals and one plaque.

While I have no videos for you, I do have a picture, there you go (click it to see a bigger one)...


The day was not even over after Andrew's lost fight. We were coming back for the big Saturday night show and oh boy what a show! Seriously, it was quite a show that started a 7pm and ended past 11pm and that included finals of forms, with and without weapons, for the grand champions black belt categories and many good fights. Was pretty impressive seeing some of them kick during fights, wow. Some of the forms were a bit too much like glorified gymastics tricks, but I guess it'S part of the game. We left at 11, Andrew completely exhausted, sleeping in the car on the way home.

Before I finish, I would like to congratulate Clint Leung of Martial Arts Bulletin on winning his forms and coming in second for his weapons in the 40-49 black belt class. I invite you all to go read his blog where he's got a nice entry about the Open and how well it ran. I agree with him, it was impressively ran...

All in all, we had a great day. A day in which my son and I both grew and that is making us want to work harder to be back next year.

FM