BATTLE at the EDGE

I participated in my first karate tournament. With only four-and-a-half months of a martial arts journey it felt a bit soon, but I was encouraged by my sensei and other students to attend and it was an in-house tournament.

In the adult novice division of "The Battle at the Edge," I took third place in kata (out of three) and first place in kumite. It helps to have a sparring partner at home. The Child also took third in kata and first in kumite in their division.

It was a good and fun day at my first tournament and would have been so even without bringing hardware home.

Watching the black belts compete let me know how far I still have to go and grow on this martial arts journey.

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I wasn't particularly happy with the results of my kata, but I know the places where I faltered and what I need to work on. Additionally, I didn't fail at it; I just have some areas that I need to polish. I especially need to work on where I place the weight during my back stance and making sure that my knife hand block (shuto uke) is strong. 

I was pleasantly surprised with my sparring. I tried out different techniques to see what worked best and discovered that some of those were hand techniques. I wasn't sure that I would be able to land some of the strikes I did, but apparently I was quicker than my opponent enough times to win the match. I see a lot of practice in my future, but it was a morale boost to take first place.