Quebec Open on April 28

Saturday April 28 was another big day in our karate life as the Quebec Open was happening that day. For both Andrew and I, it was our second time competing in that international competition. We both entered in only two classes, weapon and traditional form.

Since we'd registered Andrew before he was even asked to test for his brown belt, he competed with his green belt. He came in fifth place out of eight with his bo form. I didn't see him perform live, as I was competing myself, but after watching the video, I thought he did ok. He might lack a bit in his stances and with his attitude, or aggressiveness so to speak. My wife commented to me that some of the other kids were really acting like little warriors. I'm pretty sure that Andrew's presentation with his bo form suffered a bit compared to others due to the fact that he "only" had one hour a week of bo while I'm sure some others in this kind of competition must take 2+ hours a week, sometimes in private classes. Andrew was happy this Winter concentrating on his traditional karate which paid off with a brown belt, so I was all right with it.

They were something like 20 to compete in his traditional form category and from my calculations/assessment, he probably came in right in the middle, say about 10th. He did a good rendition of Cat 1, a kata he had to know to pass his brown belt, but that he didn't fully learn until maybe a month before testing. That's definitely not the same as when he was presenting Circle of the Tiger after almost a year and a half of perfectionning it. Still, I thought he did well with it.

Way I see it with every competition that Andrew (or even I) enters is this. I ask myself "is this the best he's ever done it?" or "has he given it his all?". Then if the answer is "YES", the end results in terms of placement matters very little.

As for me, I was signed up to compete in both weapon and traditional forms too. Well, guess what, I dropped my bo, again. :( A tiny little tip to my knee as I start a figure eight and whoops, there it goes. They still gave me second place out of three competitors. Just as for Andrew, I have not had as much of a chance to train with my bo. If you remember, the schedule was jumbled a bit after the Holiday break, leading to me losing some valuable bo training spot and let's just say that at minus 30 celsius, training outside was not an option this Winter. :) I come out of this thinking that if I had not dropped it, I could have come out of it in first place.

The good result, the one that really made me proud, came in the traditional form category. I had the pleasure meet Marc, aka MrX, who was competing in that same category and took third place, but that's not what I'm so proud of. I presented what I thought at the time was a good kata, even though everytime I watch the video I keep finding things I could have done better, but anyway, I came out of it in second place out of eight competitors. As I said, I worked hard on my Cat 3 for maybe the month prior to the competition. I felt good with it until the morning of the competition where I had trouble making my back kicks. You can see it where I lose balance with my first back kick and severely slow down the second one in order not to lose it again. I have since found why. The flooring on which I always train at the dojo is a very cushy kind of carpet. We're talking about a kinda dense but also kinda soft two inch thick mat. As weird as this may sound, I have found my balance on that kind of flooring but just could not find it back on a harder floor. I will work on that in the future.

Anyway, it was a great day. Competition ran quite smoothly. I was able to shake hands with Mr Akarien, Mrx, and even a commenter on my blog, the friendly Myrika. Hi all, it was real nice talking to you all. The Saturday evening show was just wow after wow, a great show, enjoyed by the whole family, my wife included.

I'm just a bit sad that it was quite certainly the last time I will compete there. By April of next year, I will quite probably be a black belt. As an adult brown belt, you compete against other adults who've been doing karate for about the same time as you have been doing it, anywhere from 3 to 5 years. As a black belt, in the 30-39 category, well, it is wide open. There are no category for the shodan or the nidan, or other dan if you seem where I'm going. At 37 next year, I could be against a 31 year old who's been doing karate for the last 27 years of his life. Ouch... I will probably dedicate my Quebec Open experience to following Andrew around and watching the Saturday night show. :)

Yeah, you heard me talk about videos, I'll get to them soon but first a little picture slideshow... Look at those smiles :)

As for the videos after testing it a bit, I'll post them in a new post, as the picasa slideshow seems to be making it choppy a bit... hang in there, we'll be right back...

FM