Your Japanese word of the week is...

"omedetou" which is "congratulations". And, as usual, changing it to "omedetougozaimasu" makes it all the more polite.

And first off, I'd like to extend a huge congrats to Carl, the current Shiramizu intern for reaching his third round at the Wadokai National Championships this past Aug 23rd. The Nationals are extremely competitive and to make it past two rounds is quite an acheivement. That's Carl in the picture to the right, throwing a kick during his second kumite match.

Oddly, this past Aug 21-23 was also the Wadokai World Championships. And no, you didn't read wrong, the same association held two tournaments in two continents at the same time. Conveniently, the World Championships were being held in Vancouver this year and, equally conveniently, I was home for vacation at the time so I got a chance to compete in it.

It was held at Hollyburn Country Club in West Van and hosted athletes from all over the world. I entered individual kata and team kata. Competing for Canada, of course...

The 21st was all junior divisions, the 22nd was all adult elimination rounds, and the 23rd was all the final rounds.

The 22nd saw me go through 2 rounds which I won, placing me in the finals. Unfortunately, since there were no other teams entered in the team kata division, we were immediately slated for a match against the female kata team from Japan since they also had no other competitors.

The 23rd was judgement day and I was the first match run. I was up against Furuhashi Sensei, a friend of mine I had met in my year in Japan and, more importantly, a 7-time Wadokai National Kata Champion........... piece of cake =P.......

Or rather, no piece of cake as I lost 5-0 but left the ring as the silver medallist.

Then it was a long wait as the team kata event was run second to last. During that time though, there were lots to see including some excellent kumite matches as well as some awesome demos.

Then it was team kata time. Admittedly, my team of Richard, Peter, and myself hadn't gotten together nearly as often as we should but we made the most of what we had. The girls however, did get together often to practice. They actually come from the same dojo that I had been training at for the past year so they're really good friends and I've seen them practice til they dropped...... often at 11:30 at night.

Needless to say, their performance was impeccable. Surprisingly though, because there were no other male kata teams (I mean seriously, it can't be that hard to get three guys together to compete??), they awarded us a gold.

And there you have it. A gold and silver medal from the Wadokai World Championships. I'm particularly proud of my second place finish since, as I said from my result in the Saitama Wadokai tournament, it's nice to see my hard work really paying off. It was especially nice that I got to win it in Vancouver because, ultimately, that is where I'll be to further my and my students' karate, so I got to meet lots of people whom I'll probably be working and training with in the future.

Of course, it wasn't all work and no play. Shiramizu had come with almost 25 kids and I planned a fun day out for them. We rented a bus and went to Science World, Gastown, and Stanley Park, finishing with some shopping on Robson and then dinner.

The kids were pretty tired after 3 days full of karate, but they all had a great time and, despite the drizzle, left with a great impression of Vancouver.

Aside from that, thanks to all the people who made time to see me despite my packing things into 2-hr slots. It was really great seeing everyone and....... y'know..... speaking English again haha.......

And now, I'm back in Japan......... work kicked off this past Saturday with a day full of presentations for a "teacher's training" course. The next karate event will be Sept 15th, which is the Tobu Tournament. This was the first tournament I competed in as the Shiramizu intern so it'll be interesting to see what I can do this time around.....

Til then...

Team Japan (L to R) - Yuki, Kana, Rie

Team Canada (L to R) - Richard, me, Peter