First Black Belt Tournament....

...so yesterday, I went to my first tournament as a black belt. Wow... the difference in things is pretty amazing. First of all, since I'm now a black belt, I get to judge. After many protestations on my part, I went ahead and judged. My first bout of judging was kata and weapons. For one of the largest and most competitive divisions in the circuit. Seriously. Nothing like going before the firing line. And as uncomfortable and inadequate I felt about that, those were easy compared to my second bout. I got to judge sparring for little kids. Some points were a free-for-all boxing match. More often than not, it's hard to tell who is doing what. Then again, some of these kids had AMAZING skills for someone so little. I saw things I can't even do!

....as far as competing goes, it's a bit of a different ball game, too. First, the women have been competing for a long time. Second, they are more competitive. Much more so. In the underbelt divisions (Kyu ranks for those of you who know karate-ese), when a match is done, everyone's friends again. Not as often with black belt women. There's a cool-off period. And that's ok. Because everyone's friends again by the end of the night.

...OK, the run down of how I did. I got 4th of 4 in weapons. I expected this, as I've been running the tonfa (which is the weapon I used) for maybe two months now, if that. My goals for weapons? Not to drop the weapon. Not to hit my head with it. Finish the kata. I did all three. And that's good. Next! I got 3rd of out 3 for kata. Again, it was to be expected. But from what some of the judges told me, I just need to clean it up, and then I could actually be a contender for it. I run kata differently than most people. For one, I'm still new at running kata. For two, I'm less theatrical about it. We'll see. I highly doubt I'll ever really do very well with kata. Next! I got 3rd of 4 in chanbara. I lost my first match to the woman who took the state title last year for it. And the next match, I won. So I took third. Not too shabby! Next! For sparring, I got 2nd out of 3. The first match, I lost to the woman who took 2nd in the state. I got one minute to rest, and then beat the woman who won the state title last year. Was a bit surprised with that one.

...OK, now you can all give me your I-told-you-so's. Am feeling like, in a few years after being a black belt, I could probably be doing even better. Two of the three women I went up against yesterday have been doing martial arts for 20 or more years. That's a tad different than my measley three years total of the last five years!