My Recent Tournament and New Goals

[Vagabond]

I recently attended the annual IKA Tournament in Sacramento. I had a blast, this for me was a whole new league of competition that I looked forward to growing in. The Kata were all Japanese (as opposed to the open tournaments I have been in), and the sparring was confusing. I placed 2nd in Kata, and 3rd in Sparring (there were only 3 competitors though).

The thing was I landed several blows on my opponent, and remained in control the whole time. I started researching the rules for point sparring in this type of tournament and I could only find rules for the JKA. I wanted to know if they were similar.

I know that the judge was rather inexperienced, she kept looking to everyone for reassurance that she was doing the right thing, but everyone has to learn. She also called Jodan suki for my opponent, even though he hit my chest and face shots were illegal. I decided rather than be upset at the judge that I should seek to improve myself, because that is all I can control. I will try to post the match as soon as I can.

So in a nutshell what I am asking is for some advice specifically geared towards karate tournaments, and even better would be IKA. Thanks in advance.

[jjaje]

Patrick,

Sounds like you had a good time. Just keep practicing. Many tournament have the rules available via fax or email before hand so you can become familiar with them, can't hurt to ask.

Judging can be tough, bu I'd rather have an inexperienced judge that was fair, than an experienced judge that played favorites.