An Educational Experience
The yellow belt was ready to compete in his second tournament. Just two weeks earlier, he had experienced his first tournament. It went well, with a first place in kata and second in kumite. He left that tournament feeling pretty good about himself. A week later, Sensei had brought a video camera to class. In those days, a video camera was a big deal, and a rarity. All of the students got a chance to see how they looked on screen. What a shock!! The yellow belt was hit with that sudden realization that he wasn’t looking as good as he thought. He had felt like a green belt, but now realized, he was barely a yellow belt.
Now he was set to walk out on the mat in front of the spectators and the Black Belt Judges. He was going to perform Pinan 2, the same kata he had won with 2 weeks ago. There were butterflies. There was a bit of cold sweat. For a moment he wondered why he was subjecting himself to all this tension. One reason was that Sensei insisted that his students compete in both kata and kumite if they were going to compete at all. Sensei believed in well-rounded martial artists, Lately, there had been a trend of specialized tournament competitors who trained only for kumite or only for kata. Sensei didn’t want that for his students. They had to do both or nothing at all. Time to do the kata.
When he finished his kata, he froze in place, waiting for the signal from the judges to relax. He did the kata as well as he could. He knew one day it would be better. What did the Judges think of it? They liked it enough for 3rd place, better than he expected. Not bad out of 15 competitors.
Next thing for the yellow belt was some educational observation of the higher belts competing with their more advanced kata, He was particularly impressed by a brown belt’s performance of Gankaku Dai and looked forward to the time when he would learn it.
Sparring, or kumite, was next. At his first tournament, he felt good and sparred well. It was a double elimination tournament. That worked out well for the yellow belt. In his second match, he had to fight a friend of his from his own dojo. The yellow belt had never fought well against his friend. It was like his friend had some secret power that sucked all the yellow belt’s speed and strength right out of him. As expected, the yellow belt lost to his friend, which put him in the loser’s bracket. His friend, in the winner’s bracket, would beat an opponent, who would then face the yellow belt in the loser’s bracket. Finally, there were only two left. The yellow belt from the loser’s bracket and his friend. If the yellow belt were to win against his friend, he would have to do it twice to win the tournament. No need to explain that as it became irrelevant. The yellow belt was awarded second place after his friend defeated him again, claiming the championship.
Now to try it all over again. The yellow belt’s friend was not at this tournament. He felt confident he could do well. It was time to find out. He and his opponent entered the ring. The judge issued some instructions. They bowed in and the judge gave the order to begin, “Hajime”. The opponent moved closer to the yellow belt who responded with 3 quick front kicks to the opponent’s body. He retracted his foot, the opponent followed the foot in and hit the yellow belt in the head with a punch. This surprised the yellow belt. In his dojo, they practiced strict non-contact. True they were wearing Joon Rhee’s new Saf-t-Chop and Saf-t-Kick, but it was still supposed to be non-contact. Turns out, that was open to interpretation. The yellow belt lost and was back in the loser’s bracket. That was okay. He could fight his way back.
His next match was against a soft stylist who just barely lost his first match. The yellow belt was a bit mesmerized when he had watched this competitor in the kata competition. It was sure to be an educational sparring match.
Now, in those days you could never be sure what type of surface you might be fighting on. It might be a gym floor, a grassy area or, as in this case, one of those 3-piece wrestling mats found in many gyms. Usually these three pieces would be taped together, but not this time. The pieces were just butted up against each other. The match progressed and there was a clash with both the yellow belt and his opponent trying to land a technique worthy of a point. The yellow belt attempted a spinning back kick. The big toe of his support foot got caught in the seam between the mat sections. A minute or so later, the match was over and the yellow belt had been eliminated.
He sat and watched to rest of the tournament. It was a good tournament, with competent and respectful competitors and officials. The yellow belt got a special award, a swollen big toe that he had broken in the mat seam. A very educational experience indeed.
 |  |  |
