The Higashi Championships have been and gone now... I came fifth in my category (of about 13) which I thought was okay for my first one. Perhaps next time I'll get a trophy. The juniors from our club did extremely well getting six trophies between them including one first place.
The atmosphere of the event was not at all what I expected. I imagined that it would be fairly quiet and very serious but it but to the contrary, it was noisy and there was a lot going on at once with about six different areas in use. This took the pressue off a little because the only people watching you are pretty much the judges and competitors in your category; it's not like the entire arena is watching you. So I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. I still suffered from nerves a little bit but I'm sure that everybody else did too. It's all part of the competition environment and learning to overcome them is part of the training.
Although my own performance lasted for perhaps just one minute, the competition went on for several hours and I had already missed most of the junior events. Watching the higher grades sparring in particular was quite fun though it made me glad to be female as the male sparring just looks downright vicious! There were lots of loud kiai's to be heard, as well as various other shouts, squeals and odd monkey noises from one competitor! It probably sounded worse than it really was. However the women weren't quite so vocal, or so mean looking so I may just have a go at the kumite next time.
The next competition is due to be held in April so I could be yellow belt by then which allows me to enter the kumite as well as the kata. All in all, a good day marred only by the parking ticket I found on my car when I left :-(
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