Last Saturday I attended my first Karate Tournament in Japan, only my second overall. Unfortunately I'm not a black belt so my division Male Adult Non-black belts is quite small but I still managed to fight 4 people. I was there with a friend who was kind enough to stay the whole time and record my fights.
When I got to the arena and changed my clothes I made my way to the main hall which was full up with about 250 people of primary school age to retirement all practising their kata's, kumite combos and stretching. It's quite an atmosphere seeing these many people here for the same thing, knowing they each trained hard outside of class and their own free time to get here, tournament fighters are the cream of the karate class crop.
Needless to say I was really REALLY nervous, and kumite started in the afternoon whereas I got there at 8:30am on time. From memory over the course of the whole tournament I went to the bathroom just under 10 times. What was weird though was that I when I came back I was still nervous so I would drink water even though I wasn't thirsty, which only made the problem worse.
After the Kata finished there was a lunch break so my friend, a sempai from my club and I went to go grab some soba. As we came back the kids were already at it, soon it would be our turn...
Round 1
This dude was actually pretty good, he had the most aggression and could have won the tournament if not for me. I had looked at all the people fight before and they simply waited too long, they waited both of them were ready and then someone would spring. I decided that to win my strategy would be FULL ATTACK from the get-go.
First bout I charged quite fast he wasn't able to side step so he backed off out of the ring to avoid getting hit.
Second bout he decided to try a kick, bad idea I love it when people kick. I really threw away a point here though, i forgot what to do once I caught his leg so I just made him fall over instead. Probably could have won the fight there and then.
A note about the rules.... clean hits that pass guard are awarded one point, clean hits against defenceless opponent i.e. their back, while they are on the floor or simply just too fast and they make no attempt to block win the match. Stepping out of the ring warrants a warning, doing it twice results in loss of a point, hitting someone too hard gets you a warning and twice, loss of a point.
So right now it's still 0-0, but I'm winning by a ring warning (i.e. if it was a score tie he loses by that warning, I lost my tournament match in Australia that way).
So he must have realised he was in a bad place if I took the initiative, so he jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, he went on the offensive. I was totally waiting for him, his first attempt to close to punching distance failed epically, a snap kick with my front leg to his stomach stopped him in his tracks as a follow-up reverse punch went in clean to his face. First point goes to me.
I was looking to end it with an attack from above, but he was really fast at stepping away so I cancelled it mid flight, he though this was his chance, made a mistake by opening his counterattack up with a kick though. Easily deflected and I had the time to move away and reset. From here I launched consecutive reverse punches stepping forward after each, I closed the distance on the last one when he actually turned his face away and that one went in close enough and clean enough to win the fight.
After the fight I forgot to shake his hand, you can see him starting to walk in, very noob of me.
Round 2
This guy watched my previous fight so I don't know what he was thinking, but he decided to stick to his fighting style, move in slowly with guard up and then hopefully do something when you're close enough. Too bad I was in aggressive stance, he was seriously not moving fast at all hoping he could tank my hits as I moved in and out of his range. I waited a while with no guard hoping he would initiate. He didn't so I opened with my 影拳, Kageken, Shadow Fist WOAH! (named it myself) to the face, unfortunately I think looking at the video I missed or hit him too hard, his head went back so his jab counter missed, no score.
Reset, he stayed firm in the middle of the ring. I went in for a reverse punch to the face which hit too hard and I got a warning, his Lunge Jab, was way too slow as a counter so it just got misdirected. At this point I realised two things, I was always attacking the head and he was always countering to my head with his front hand. So my new strat was block his vision and punch his ribs.
After the reset, I came straight in with this but he jabbed early so I had to block. Second time around his jab was too slow, my hand covered his eyes first, his jab just cancelled out and my stomach short punches with my right hand went in clean to an exposed rib, score for me.
Reset, still hoping for aggression now that he was losing but no, I decided to mix it up with a roundhouse a mistake on my part he was too close so my knee impacted weirdly instead, also too far away for the punch to land but close enough to make him flinch and let me run away. Weirdly enough on this video he actually drops his guard hand as my head level roundhouse starts, in favour of running away. So, naturally as a I follow through with two Right jabs to the head point blank its useless in countering and defense. He realised too late and didn't switch to his right hand for a counter, my height allowed me to push his guard down with the first punch and then go in clean with the second, score and win. His hands were trembling as we shook hands.
Round 3
This guy is actually Chinese, the way I could tell was that the Japanese couldn't pronounce his name so in the end they just called him 'David' ROFL.
This dude probably had my style figured out, he was coming in low and fast with semi-guard up not a bad style. Me, I decided to mess with him and just ran away too fast and around him and out of the ring, I received a silly ring warning, but the look of WTH? confusion on his face was too priceless. This time around he didn't chase me, favouring angles and keeping distance. My cure for intelligent planning? 影拳 to the face which turned his head, also my stance allowed me to fully dodge his reverse punch along with my side step. Reverse punch was an interesting weapon of choice, going for a stomach counter to stop my movement, my sempai does that too. Needless to say though I can fire a jab and sidestep alot faster. Watching the video, he brought his body and head forward to try and increase the range of his punch, which is the problem with low reverse punches. Problem is combined with my jab and him turning his head to escape the hit, he lost movement momentum which is another problem with low reverse punches. Sidestepped out of the way completely and delivered a clean counterattack reverse punch to the face, his guard was nowhere near able to block it, score.
Next point is the one I'm second most proud of. The whole tournament I had kept basically fully aggressive guard, so just to mess with him a little more I went to full defensive blocking guard. Basically the only technique that I can fire off effectively from this guard is the one I scored with. My arms join to form a weird closed guard shape, my stance lowers and my front hand is open with the back of my forearm protecting my body. Perfect for his attempt to initiate, being one score down its initiate or lose basically. Now my reach is not really that much longer so he could still hit, but I angled a bit so his left jab went out into space but he was actually doing a one-two combo so his right hand was following up to a close rib section. Only problem with this strat of his was I was waiting for something like this. I saw him move in for attack and stepped in myself, my left hand was already partially extended and ready so he walked into a perfect left jab counter, defusing his power and winning me the match.
FINAL ROUND
I'm fighting my sempai, high level belt than me in my club but still not black belt yet. Against him I was now fully serious, no games no letting him plan or anything, full aggression and match control was my plan. First initiation was just a no score, we continued so I decided to give him an ultimatum charge. Initiating with left hand and then keeping there trying to grab his hands as I came forward with my right firing off reverse punches he took the option of stepping out of the ring, he got a ring warning.
After reset I setup a different angle, now what happens here might be confusing. Basically he was trying to fire off a kick with his right leg, but I started and executed faster with my punch. It was high angle, from above his guard and even head level down to his head with my left hand against his body. His kick which looks like a roundhouse was way too slow, I had stepped over and past his leg with my left leg, so as I came in close his leg was pushed by my body and forced him to turn counter-clockwise in a stationary location. Nothing he could do at that point my punch came in and then my body forced him to lose balance and stumble out of the ring, score! At this point I could hear the kids behind me commenting in Japanese, mostly something like wow or sugeee which means awesome kinda.
My final trick up my sleeve came out, the combo I liked the most, leg sweep. By itself when executed properly it wins the match, but I saved it till now. With him on the aggressive trying to come back now. I changed stance to defence, and lowered myself below him, trying to sneak in with my legs. His right reverse punch was caught by my let hand and he read my right punch coming and dodged his left. I really should have countered to his stomach. He came again with his right, but I leaned left and angled for a more straight off centre right reverse punch, dunno what went wrong but the match continued. I wasn't gonna wait for his right to land, so I grabbed his left hand with my right to stop a jab counter and pull him off balance as my back leg came forward to deliver the leg-sweep. He fell, defenceless and might right finished him and won me the tournament.
Afterwards my friend who had no interest in karate, was like really into it and interested hahaha. My club got both first and second place in our division, pretty ownage. Not only that but me and him were in different blocks completely so we beat our way through different opponents to meet in the final.
I don't get to keep the trophy, but I do get a strip to write my name on and leave it on there. It's a cool legacy to be apart of :)
