Australian Uni Champs 2004

by Rena Moriguchi

The Australian University Karate Championships of 2004 was held at University of NSW on 9th of October. I left Melbourne on Friday which was the day before the tournament, taking an early morning flight to Sydney. (took off at 7:15am! I didn't sleep and left home at 4am!!)

On arrival, I visited the university which was a 10-minute bus trip from the airport to confirm and the venue, schedule and AKF rules. The AUC, being a university, does not favour any particular style of karate and so is conducted under AKF all-styles rules.

The weather in Sydney was lovely and warm and I enjoyed walking around ( ..alone. ) for a few hours of sightseeing

There was quite a crowd at the Uni gym. Both colour belts and black belts were competing and there were more female competitors than I expected.

Loads of friends and family also turned up to watch. Most teams were from NSW, but I did notice that the University of Melbourne team was well represented.

The competition began with individual kata. Unlike a traditional kata match, it was performed in a tournament style. Competitors have to do multiple kata rounds before reaching the final, and no kata must be done twice.

This tournament style, which was also introduced to the All Japan Championship last year, demands strategic and careful decision making in choosing a kata to perform for each round. If your opponent in the first round has the ability to get to the final or semi final, you probably should choose your tokui kata (favourite kata) or at least do an advanced level kata. If you feel your opponent does not have the necessary skills to advance to the final rounds, then it would be better to perform an intermediate level kata and keep your tokui kata for the later rounds. Unfortunately, bad kata choice was the first thing to go wrong with my day.

To be honest, my Bassai-dai did not feel good when I was warming up that day. I could not seem to get much "Kime" in some movements, such as the rib attack with Tetsui (hammer fist strike) or Yama tsuki (Mountain punch). Maybe I should have tried Jion or Kanku-dai. But I did Bassai anyway because I had not prepared other kata for this torunament. I could not feel the kime and power of the kata as much as I did in the South African tournament earlier in the year.

My opponent was of the Gojyu style (if I'm not mistaken). She did a kata called Seishan. She was not as technically good as many "kata professionals" I met in Japan, but she was very good at tailoring her performance to meet the expectations of the tournament referees. She won the match 2-1 and finally got the 3rd place.

The best part of an All Styles competition is that you can watch many different katas of different styles. I specially enjoyed watching the Gojyu, Shito and Wado style katas. The eventual Kata winner was Kristina Mah who did a powerful Kururunfah (holding your ground) kata from the Gojyu style.

Losing the kata in the 1st round made me very nervous during my kumite warm up. Everyone looked so confident and seemed to be tougher and faster than I am. It is so difficult to keep yourself calm and determined to win when your teammates are not around. I honestly have never felt any fear to be hit or kicked very hard, but recently I have started to fear losing a match, which never happened when I was coloured belt. No need to mention that it is the worst feeling to have.

What brought me back to the "aggressive fighter" that I know myself to be, were the words of advice from sensei Keith and all my hard training in our Melbourne dojo and in Japan. I decided to trust my skills and convinced myself that there was no reason for me to lose in kumite.

I observed all the other competitors carefully and tried to identify their attacking patterns. In every match I did exactly as sensei advised me.

I took my time, watched the opponent carefully and scored with Gyaku-zuki (reverse punch) before or after their attacks.

Sometimes I did combination attacks as well. It worked well to lessen the opponent's confidence to come forward and made scoring easier. Although we were warned that jodan contact must be strictly avoided or a warning ("Hansoku chui") would be given, most jodan contacts were ignored unless they were extremely strong. Fortunately, competitors were tough enough and controlled punches well, so there were no serious injuries in spite of some excessive contact both in the jodan and chudan areas.

After quite a few challenging fights, I made it to the final and faced Kristina Mah the kata winner (the tall girl with a red belt in the photo below). From her previous matches, I knew this Gojyu-ryu practitioner had a really fast punch and stunning kicking technique. She defeated Karryn Jenkins who was the silver medalist of SKIA national championships held in the previous week, and really dominated that fight.

I changed my tactic and decided to attack more aggressively because I knew that "wait and attack" would not work with an opponent who had a faster punch. Her favourite scoring technique was a reverse roundhouse kick (ura mawashi) with a front leg and she scored many san-bon throughout the tournament. It is a great advantage to be a good kicker, more specifically a good Jodan kicker in AKF (or WKF) rules, as it scores san-bon ( 3 points ), whereas you can only score ippon (1 point, equivalent to wazari ) with a punch no matter how fast and strong it is.

It was a tough fight. Both of us hit hard at each other. I did my best and scored 1 point but was defeated at the end by the better fighter. The difference between Kristina and I was her kicking technique and its speed. She was also really good at stepping into distance (maai) and stepping out without making any obvious initial move.

Although I did not win the gold medal, there was so much I learned from the tournament and most importantly, it was a great experience.

When you fight with a national team level fighter, the biggest gap between you and that person is not the technique (although it is obviously a factor), but experience. There are skills you can only learn from competition, including mental toughness.My old instructor repeatedly told me that you only use 30-40% of your whole technique in a competition.

I think it is true. You will find yourself thinking "I could have punched faster" or "I could have used more varied kicks!" in a fight. Only repetitive experience can free you from this it-can't-be-happening competition nightmare. Competition helps you set goals for yourself and motivates you. I would recommend everyone to join in as many competitions as they can, no matter how big they are.

Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to sensei Keith and all of my friends. I would not have achieved anything if I hadn't had you all to support me in the run up to the competition. Thank you so much for all who encouraged me, did kumite with me and are always good karate mates of mine. Oss!!

Click here for the final Australian University Karate Championships 2004 results (pdf format)