On Sunday, 23th August 2009, I competed in the National All Styles tournament at Ryde, NSW. It was Round 4 in their event calendar, and my third NAS event for the year after I competed in Round 1 back in March and Round 3 back in June.

I competed in the Open Continuous Sparring, the Advanced Intermediate Forms (Kata) (3rd Kyu – 1st Kyu), and the Advanced Intermediate Point Sparring (3rd Kyu – 1st Kyu). I’m currently a 2nd Kyu, so was up against black belts in the continuous sparring and people around my level for the other 2 events.

Cutting straight to the good news, I won my Point Sparring division! I placed first (out of 4 competitors), winning round 1 with a score of 5-2, and round 2 (the 1st/2nd playoff) with a score of 10-3. A still image and the video of my first place in the 1st/2nd playoff is below. (I’m the one starting on the far side, in the red gloves).

Scoring with Mawashi-geri (roundhouse kick) to the head

Please continue reading for more commentary, images and video from the National All Styles Round 4 event.

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On Sunday, 28th June 2009, I competed in the National All Styles tournament at Ryde, NSW. It was Round 3 in their event calendar, and my second NAS event for the year after I competed in Round 1 back in March.

I was a little nervous and a little excited to be competing again, and was keen to see if I could improve on my previous showings – not so much my placing, but my technique, my form, my confidence to “go” and attack.

I competed in the Open Continuous Sparring, the Advanced Intermediate Forms (Kata) (3rd Kyu – 1st Kyu), and the Advanced Intermediate Point Sparring (3rd Kyu – 1st Kyu). I’m currently a 3rd Kyu, so was up against black belts in the continuous sparring and people around my level for the other 2 events.

After the Continuous Sparring

In general I was pretty happy with how I went, placing 3rd (out of 6) in the Continuous Sparring, 2nd (out of 2 :)) in the Kata and 2nd (out of 4) in the Point Sparring.

Please read on to see more images and video of my events.

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On the 28th June, the National All Styles round 3 tournament is being held at Ryde, NSW.

National All Styles

I competed in Round 1 of the NAS tournament back in February, which was a lot of fun and an excellent learning experience – but I haven’t competed since then. There’s been a few other tournaments that have come and gone that I wasn’t able to enter due to conflicts on my social calendar!

So I’m really looking forward to this one, and plan on competing in the Continuous Sparring, Point Sparring and Kata. It will be made more interesting by the fact that this time I have to compete in the higher grades (3rd Kyu – 1st Kyu), instead of the Intermediate grade (as I’m now 3rd Kyu).

Hopefully I can get a few pictures and videos of my events, and you can be sure I’ll post the results afterwards.

A short update on my Journey to Black Belt training – on Saturday morning I went to Adcock Park to do the run, followed by the pushups, situps and squat kicks. Adcock Park is the venue where the actual black belt grading takes place (the fitness component, that is).

It’s 3 laps around the track that goes around the outside of the park, which apparently totals 5.4km. I ran it in 23:40!! So I took 2 minutes off my previous best time, on a track that’s longer than what i’ve been running at home. I put it down to 2 things:

1. A flatter track at Adcock Park (there’s a few big hills where I run at home)
2. Focus and Motivation

I did push myself harder, so I’m really happy with the time.

Apparently during the black belt grading, you don’t get any recovery time before having to jump straight into the pushups/situps/squat kicks – so I need to start working on that and eliminate the 1-2 minute rest I’m taking after my run. One strategy a few people use is to run the first 2 laps fast and coast the 3rd lap, so you can recover during that last lap (even walking for half the last lap). I’ll have to try that.

Thanks for reading.

On Sunday I competed in my third Martial Arts tournament, the National All Styles (Round 1) at Ryde Aquatic Centre. It was my second tournament in 2 weeks, after competing in the Sydney All Styles NSW-AKF tournament the weekend before.

NAS is quite a different tournament – it definitely attracted more different styles of Martial Arts, including Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, Kung Fu, etc. The sparring is similar, but also quite different to the AKF rules. Many of the techniques that score points in NAS would never have scored in AKF events – which can make it quite challenging and make you fight in a different way than what you’re used to.

I competed in the Continuous Sparring, Forms (Kata) and Point Sparring events and apart from giving my friend Ray a bloody nose, in general I was pretty happy with how I went – coming 2nd (out of 3) in the Kata and 3rd (out of 6) in the Point Sparring.

The moment of impact when Ray's nose started to bleed

Please read on to see more images, video and my commentary of all of my events.

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Well today (5th February) is my birthday, and I’ve turned 34 years old. I guess getting close to mid-30’s should feel pretty old, but actually I’m feeling pretty good about it. So far I haven’t really felt bad about getting older. That’s not to say I haven’t noticed changes. My metabolism changed when I hit 30 and I just couldn’t eat whatever I wanted and still stay thin like I used to be able to do. I had to actually work at it and watch what I ate a bit more (I do love my food).

However since starting Karate at Black Belt Martial Arts about 2 years ago, the training alone has definitely helped keep me fit and keep me thin. I haven’t really had to do any extra exercise except the karate classes to maintain my weight. My wife Kate has been a great help and inspiration though too. She started doing some serious exercise (mainly on the treadmill at home) last year and lost a lot of weight in the year. Along with that we’re both eating better, eating healthier and staying off the junk food (well, mostly!).

Please continue reading as I ramble some more and talk about some upcoming Karate tournaments I plan to enter.

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