Seiritsu International Education

(L to R)- Rui, Yuka, and Yukiko strut their stuff in Team Kata.

One of the many kumite matches throughout the day.

The entire club (and their trophies) at the end of the Kita-ku Tournamnt.

Hey everyone, it’s been a while since the last update. This time around I’ll be talking about the recent karate tournaments that the Seiritsu karate club have been participating in.

I went to a total of 3 tournaments in the past two weeks, all of them in Tokyo. Two official tournaments and one city tournament. The karate club attended all three and did fairly well.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from a karate tournament, other than seeing a lot of dogis and black belts. I was surprised to see that there are a few kata [predetermined move sets, where the competitor has to execute a series of techniques with utmost precision.] that were much more popular than others. I got to see some kata that really left me in awe, as well as some kumite [sparring] that literally made my jaw drop.

A few things did shock me besides the actual event were the energetic, always ready and always helping competitors doing everything from preparing to cleaning at the end. These type of things would rarely happen in Quebec...

The tournaments made me to want to train a lot harder than usual; it gave me a certain hunger to do karate, more so than before. Since the first tournament I’ve been waking up as early as 5:30 AM and heading to the school dojo for an hour of morning practice. So I’ve been getting 3 hours a day... (Counting the 2 hours I do after school.)

Besides that, the tournaments were good for the bonding of the club. Wessel and I got to talk with the team a lot more, help out and make some jokes here and there as the weeks went by. Since the first tournament, I think we’ve been getting closer as friends and as a unit.

I should also add that some of our club members won some awards from these competitions. Congratulations to Yuka, for getting Top 8 in individual women's kumite and then 4th in another individual women’s kumite the following week. I’d also like to congratulate Ryota-Sempai, Shun-Sempai and Carl for their winnings in the Kita-ku (North-region of Tokyo) tournament as well.

Anyhow, that’s all for this time. Thanks for reading everyone.

David