Crazy Tournament Stories

[Goju 4 Life]

Share your remarkable stories here. Like someone landing a crazy technique or a brawl. anything

[Shorinryu Sensei]

Share your remarkable stories here. Like someone landing a crazy technique or a brawl. anything

 

Well, I don't know how "crazy" this is, but it was very a very interesting experience for me.

 

Back in the late 70's through the late 90's, I was heavily into judging and ref'ing point tournaments in this state. I still do now and then, but not to the same extent. Anyway, despite this fact, I had never actually competed in a tournament..just worked at them. In 1989, I was going to take about 8 students to a big tournament (we look at them as a fun experience, not required) and on the 4 hour drive to it, my students talked me into entering the competition...not just working it. It wasn't an easy thing for me to contemplate, as I'm not a competitive person by nature, and to think about competing against these many friends of mine that were serious competitors and attend dozens of tournaments/year, I figured I'd get creamed and be out of the running rather quickly. Another factor that I worried about was the fact that I was still recovering from a torn ACL injury about 6 months previously, and I had done practically no sparring or forms during that time to let that heal completely.

 

Soooooo..upon arriving at the tournament, many of my fellow black belts that I had been working with for the past 10 years or so always asked me if I was going to compete this time, and my normal (and by now, expected) answer was "No, just judging/ref'ing."..so they were surprised that I said "Yes, actually I am this time. Kata and sparring."

 

At this tournament, the black belts compete first so they are "fresh" and not tired from judging/ref'ing all day and we lined up to bow in for the kata competition. I was nervous as hell! The center judge was Sue Phillips...a TKD sensei that I'd known for years, and I had asked her to PLEASE not call me first because I was so nervous! When she drew the first name out of the hat (well, shoe box actually), she started laughing and looked right at me. Oh hell...I WAS FIRST!

 

I took a deep breath, approached the judges..announced my little intro and was given permission to start. Keep in mind, there were 5 judges here that were my firends, and yet not a one of them had ever seen me do a kata before. For all they knew, I was really BAD! Hell, for all I knew..I was too!

 

I stepped back, took a deep breath...bowed to the judges, and performed Chinto for them. I really remember very little about it, and when the judges scored me, I was so busy feeling relieved, that I forgot to look at what there scores were!

 

I sat down..shook hands with a few of my friends that were waiting to compete next, and watched everybody else compete in turn. I was done...I didn't fall on my face...and I felt that I did my best, so I was happy about that!

 

At the end of the kata competition, the scores were added up...we lined up awaiting the results...3rd place was called...not me....then 2nd place...and they said my name! I was really shocked that I had beaten so many (15 or so) other competitors that I knew did such a great job!

 

OK..on with the story (bored yet?) ...next came sparring. Single elimination...meaning you lose one match, your done. Again, I asked Sue Phillips to please not call my name first.

 

Guess what? First out of the box...me against some 3rd Dan TKD guy from Oregon that I'd never seen before. OH CRAP! Well, I got up there wearing my gloves, cup, foot gear and mouth piece. One thing to keep in mind here people, is that I rarely wear a groin cup (Yeah, not real smart sometimes), and have NEVER had foot pads on my feet or a mouthpiece in my mouth before. I was uncomfortable and it was awkward feeling.

 

This TKD guy and I squared off, and at the end of the two minute period, I beat him by a score of 4-1. Next up was another 3rd Dan TKD guy from Ohio that I had never seen before also. This was a really good match, because he was tall also and I could tell he wanted really badly to kick me in the head. The score was 3-3 I think, when time ran out..so the winner would be decided by sudden death. The first point won! We got on our marks and I got into a really wide and low stance from what I normally do. The guy side stepped in and launched a kick to my head (that's what I wanted him to do ) and I dropped to the floor and launched a side kick at this groin...PERFECT! Oh man..was this guy PO'd!!! But I won!

 

My 3rd match was against Jan Marcus (don't let the name fool you..he's a guy) who is about 5'7" tall, nearly round..and a dang good, serious and great competitor. He does a mixture of kung fu systems and is quite good.

 

Jan and I have been friends for a long time and we both went into the fight with smiles on our facres and cracking wise cracks at each other. Keep in mind also that all of the ref's (5 of them total) are our friends. As we circled and "felt each other out", we both were cracking comments at each other like "If you win, you buy the beer tonight" and such. We had all of the ref's and people within ear shot laughing at us because we were having fun in that ring. We clashed a bunch of times. Jan scored on me..I scored on him. A few times one of us scored and knew it, but the judges didn't see it..so we just smiled and kept on fighting. At the end, we were tied 4-4 when time ran out. Sudden death again! ARGH! We lined up...Sue said "FIGHT!" and Jan lunge punched at my gut. I blocked, but it got in just enough. I was out!

 

At the end of the sparring competition, I had no idea where I was sitting in relation to a trophy..and to tell the truth, I didn't care. I had sparred with my peers, done well I thought, and gained new respect for each other. When we lined up to award the trophies. I was given 3rd place.

 

At this point, I told my friends that that was good...and I retired from competition. It's just not "my thing".

 

At the end of the tournament the promoter awards an Outstanding judge/referee plaque that is voted on by all of the other judges/ref's, and I was given this. An honor, to be sure. Also, the judges/ref's vote on who the outstanding competitor of the tournament was. This isn't necessarily based on who won the most, but that is a factor. Attitude plays a big role also. I was also awarded that plaque. So...my first (and only) tournament as a competitor, I walked out with 4 trophies/plaques. It was a good day, but not one i will be repeating.

[foreveryoung001]

Neat Story SS.

 

I entered my first tourny when I was 4th or 5th gup... many many years ago. Late 80's. I drew a by on the first round of sparring, so I had an opportunity to watch some of the other competitors. The match I was really interested in was between a tall lanky guy who just looked quick and had great technique, and another, smaller guy who was bulky, slow, and very rough around the edges.

 

I watched the tall guy just demolish the shorter guy in the first round. We sparred two-3 minute rounds with a one minute break between. For the second round, the shorter guy came out full force (this was a light contact only tournament. normal point sparring tag) and shorty caught the tall guy with round house. Big guy blocked it, but he was not expecting the force to be so great, and shorty connected right on his chin, not with a slap round with the top of the foot, but a regular, ball of the foot smacking you on the chin, kind of kcik. It knocked the tall guy out. He was out cold for a good 45 seconds. Shorty was deducted a point, the tall guy did get up eventually and fought the rest of the round, but ended up losing in the end. After taking the blow, he just wasn't in it anymore. To this day I still think they should have DQ'd shorty, but they didn't.

 

In the next round, I drew shorty... who was actually closer to my size, 6' even, he just looked really short again against the 6'4" guy. Being in my first tournament, and fighting a guy who I had just watched knock out another comeptitor really freaked me out. I was very defensive, and at the end of one I was ahead 1-zip. In the second, I thought he would do exactly what he had done to the tall guy, and he did, but I was ready for him. My instructor told me that if he tried anything like that to counter just as hard and to let him know that I was not a push-over. I blocked the round kick, and countered with a reverse punch to his sternum. I knocked the wind out of him, and had my point taken away for excesive contact, but when we started up again he was the one that was afraid of me. I ended up winning that round 3-1, and went on to place 3rd in my division out of 15.

 

I don't know how remarkable this story is, it's just the one that sticks out in my head. I suppose I could dress it up a little and start telling it with shorty knocking the guy out with a jump spinning 360 reverse hook kick...

 

The guy who took first in our division was the twin brother of the tall guy. I had to fight him too.... got my toosh whipped I think the final against him was 9-2 or something pathetic like that. To this day I still have a hard time sparring against someone who is that much taller than I am.

[Kicks]

Share your remarkable stories here. Like someone landing a crazy technique or a brawl. anything

 

I was at a tournament when a fight broke out.

 

No, that's not a joke. I ws judgeing a match between two rival schools. The guy in 'red' punched 'blue' in the face twice during the match. Remember, in WTF we fight bare knuckled and punches to the head are illegal. Well, red got disqualified. After the match the girl friend of 'red' started shouting at 'blue'. He shouted back across the crowd and eventually threw something at her. Next thing I know the stands cleared, the security guards we in there, and it was a mess. It was like a hockey game, or little league baseball!

[aefibird]

Last year I went to the annual tournament of my karate organisation.

 

Y'ever have one of those days where you should just have stayed in bed? Well, that was one of those days for me.

 

The person who's car I was travelling in, got lost on the way to the venue, so instead of being calm and collected and having had plenty of time to warm up, I got there about a minute before I was due to compete in the Individual Kata. The other people who travelled in that car with me were supposed to be performing Team Kata with me...only to find that because we were late the Team Kata divisions had come and gone.

 

Anyway, I just had enough time to change into my gi and managed a few brief seconds of jumping up and down on the spot as a 'warm up' before my name was called. I managed the first round of the kata OK (Jion in case anyone is interested!) and got through to the second round, which boosted my confidence a bit. I had an 'easy' draw in the second round - I'd come up against this person in kata competition several times before and had always beaten her. However, it was not to be on that day. I started my kata (Enpi) really well, but somehow managed to miss out a chunk of it in the middle and ended up facing backwards at the end - no doubt with a bemused look on my face thinking "how did I get to face this way?"!

 

Anyway, no Team Kata for me and I was out of the Individual Kata, due to my brain having a "brain fart" at an inopportune moment. As an aside, I went off the area and into the practice room and went over Enpi again and again without a single mistake in it! Grrr!

 

Well, Individual Sparring was next, followed by Team Sparring. I was doing well in the first round of my Individual Sparring (winning 4-0!) when I went for a chest-height roundhouse kick. My opponent blocked...but with the point of her elbow. I dropped to the floor like a stone. My foot felt like it was on fire (no foot padding in this karate comp) and it swelled up immediately. I had to be helped out of the area, and was eventually taken to the hospital by a friend, where they found that I'd broken my toe.

 

So, due to injury I was out of the Individual Sparring, which meant I was out of the Team Sparring as well.

 

To cap off a bad tourney day, my instructor had his car broken into and a boot (trunk) full of new karate gear for the dojo was stolen from it.

 

Definately a day where I should have stayed in bed!!

[ncole_91]

aefibird that tournament must have been so bad. Wow, That it alot of bad luck in one day lol

[aefibird]

It certainly was a lot of bad luck in one day!

[Marcus Aralius]

yeah bad luck

[The Saint]

Last summer I had strained all 6 liegamments in my right ankler 3 weeks before the battle of atlanta 2003. I had fundraised all summer to compete in this good touney. I could not walk on my own two feet for the first two weeks and I desided to drive down to Atlanta and go watch the competition. The drive was around 1000 miles (one way) and took me a coulpe of days. My ankle was at about 65% strenght the morning of the competition and I had desided to tape it and compete anyways.

 

I competed in Patterns and Heavy weight sparing (Mens 18-35 green to red belt).

 

When came time to do my pattern I sliped and messed it up coming in second last place (8th out of 9). I regained some compossure and fought 3 matches. The Fisrt match I beat a guy 5-0. The second match I won 5-3 which put me in the finals. I had been eyeing up a guy all day and that was the guy who met me in the final. He easily beat me 5-1 by exploiting my weak ankle. Looking back on it I would have done the same thing to an opponent. I was more than happy to win 2nd place with a torn up ankle. I would like to fight this guy now, when I can move a bit better now.(tourney fighting only) It was worth every bit of pain on the long drive back to Canada knowing I gave it everything I could.

[ncole_91]

Ouch, that must have hurt, but wow 2nd place that is pretty good.