Little Glory.....

.....in competing against yourself in a tournament. The entire weekend, I felt like an army of one. I was the only one from my school at the tournament. On Friday night and Saturday, I was without my family. I told them to come on Sunday, thinking that if they wanted to see me do anything that Sunday would be the day. So they bust a move down to see me....and they see me bow on to get first place in kumite....when I've not competed against anyone. I'm trying not to be disappointed. But I am.

....the bonus of this, though, is that I got to perform my kata in front of five highly qualified and highly respected black belts. One of whom is a woman who looks about thirty-five who is sixty and has trained under one of the most influential karate instructors and who has been influential herself in the development of women in the martial arts. I ate lunch with her today at the hotel bar, and got about half an hour with her to myself to talk about karate and life in general. She gave me my lowest score tonight for my kata, but was the only one who gave me feedback. She paid me a high compliment, though, by saying that I have a lot of power. And for that, the day was made worthwhile.



.....which now brings me to the booty I received this weekend. The 1st place plaque is for my win in chanbara. That was a win out of four people. So for that, I feel like a rockstar. The white medal is for 3rd out of four women in Continuous Sparring.






.....These are two wicked cool trophies that I received for being the Queen of Showing Up. I suppose the kata one will mean more than the sparring one, given the fact that I had to perform it twice in order to receive it. But they mean little to me, honestly, for I simply paid for them.


.....All in all it was a good weekend. But I'm disappointed a bit with how the tournament was run. There were a lot of discrepancies, a lot of misplaced items, and a lot of complaints from people who said they'll not be back next year. I hope different, for I think that the guys who run it have their hearts in the right place. They just need someone to help them run it who can organize things.....But for me, it was seeing the same people from the tournaments past and meeting new people. It's fun to see how other schools run their programs, and to see the growth of everyone involved.