Japan August 2010

I've just got back from my week in Japan and overall i had a really good time. We left on tuesday 17th august early in the morning to catch the train down to london, as we had flown from Heathrow Airport. We didn't hang around the airport for that long, as soon as we got through security we were boarding the plane. It took a while for the plane to get off the ground but when we were in the air it wasn't so bad.


It took 11 hours to get to Tokyo, although it didn't seem that long. Me and my dad were travelling with 4 other friends from our karate club, (Derby Karate Academy) 2 competitors and 2 dads. I was really tired when we landed, all of us had been awake for about 36 hours straight. Also the weather was really hot, and humid. We were looking for the Hilton Hotel, but we had no idea where we were going.


After asking quite a few people, we were finally heading in the right direction. It was quite a long walk from the train station to the hotel, but when we got there we were all extremely glad of the air conditioning. After we checked in, we all went to our rooms. Ours was fairly big and had a great view of all of the skyscrapers. A building not far from our hotel was one of the tallest skyscrapers in Japan, it had 45 floors and on one of the days we went to the top of it where there was a tour of all of the other buildings.




When we had unpacked, we decided to go to the Japanease Sword Museum, which was about a half an hour walk from the hotel. We began to find our way round easier after a while because there were alot of maps about. It was hard to stay awake for the rest of the day because of the 8 hour time difference, we had all been awake for a long time. For dinner we went out into the town looking for japanease resturants, but we ended up having a Mcdonalds on the first day!



The breakfast was nice at the hotel, it was a bueffet most of the days. There was alot to choose from. Then for most of the days we went out sightseeing again. Then later on at night everyone would come to our room and we have a few games of cards. We all really enjoyed that. The 3 days before the competition went quite quick for me. The competition was on the saturday, followed by the finals on sunday.

We got up early on saturday morning. We had to meet up with the rest of the England Squad who were staying in a different hotel not far from ours. When we got there, we got our numbers and went to get the train to the place of the competition. It took about an hour to get to the venue, and it was quite a long walk from the train station. Next to the place where the competition was held was Disney World, where you could see some of the rides from the entrance. A couple of people went after the competiton the next day, but we didn't get chance to go.

The main hall of the venue was quite big. The competition was held in two different places. One part was in a sports hall on the second floor, and the other was in massive matted hall, with seats all around like in a football stadium.

Our catagory was up first. I was starting to get more and more nervous. It was split into two halfs. I was on after a few people had been up. There were 5 Japanease judges who were judging our half of the catagory. I think most of the judges were Japanease aswell. We both went up to do our katas at the same time, then they judge who was better at the end. When my round was over, the final score was something like 4 - 1 to the other person. Then straight after me was another person from the England squad who's score was also something like 4 - 1. I don't think anyone from England got through in our catagory. We still stayed to the end of the competitin to support the other competitors and watch some of the fighting.

So not many people medalled in the nationals, but it was a great experience and i really enjoyed the whole trip. We left Japan on tuesday, and got back on wednesday at around 8pm.

CEWKA Championships

One week ago i entered the CEWKA Wado Championships held in Wolverhampton. This competition followed the Aiwakai Championships that were held the week before. In the CEWKA Championships, i entered 4 catagories, individuals, another individuals which was the next catagory up, pairs and teams. In the first individual, which was my own age group, i came in first. In the second individual catagory, i came in second. In the pairs, we were knocked out first round so we didn't win anything, and in the teams, we came in first.

Competitions

Two weeks ago i entered the Aiwakai National Championships in Alfreton as a build to Japan. In the competition, i entered 4 different catagories. individuals, pairs, teams and i was put into an extra individual catagory with people who were older than me for experience and practise for Japan. When we got to the team catagory we found out that we had also been entered into another open catagory, which meant that we were against other styles of karate from other clubs. Overall, i came away with five gold medals.

England Squad Selections

On sunday the 18th april, i went to an england squad training session where they selected the people who where going to represent England in the National Championships in Japan. We trained for an hour and a half before the selection, where we had to perform a kata in front of the England squad selectors. I was very pleased to be selected and i am excited to go. I am looking forward to other competitions that i have coming up in a fort nights time which will be a good build up to Japan.