Question?

[holley]

Does any one know of any karate tournements in southern california?

I am going crazy i have been wanting to find a tournemnet so i can let my sensei know, so i can compete

[isshinryu5toforever]

Your instructor likely knows about tournaments going on. Southern California is a hotbed for MA. It's got pretty much everything. Your school might not concentrate on competition. That would definitely be something to ask about.

[The BB of C]

Karatetournaments.com is your friend.

[isshinryu5toforever]

Karatetournaments.com is your friend.

Not if her instructor doesn't want her to compete at all.

[evergrey]

If your instructor allows you to compete, you might want to see what the Kyokushin dojos are doing. They (except for IKO1) tend to have open tournaments, which let people of any style compete. Contact ranges from medium to full, generally.

[Dobbersky]

I believe karateka of ShotoKAI, do not compete, are there any other Ryu that don't?

[isshinryu5toforever]

There may be some other ryu that don't, but these days it's really up to the instructor. Some like competitions some don't. There are non-contact Isshinryu Karate schools. Then there are ones like mine where we spar with hard contact on a regular basis. It all depends on who your instructor is.

[JohnASE]

(EDIT - deleted a misplaced link)

Does any one know of any karate tournements in southern california?

I am going crazy i have been wanting to find a tournemnet so i can let my sensei know, so i can compete

What type are you looking for? You list your styles as "tae kwon do and sorin ryu karate". Do you want an open-style tournament or traditional Japanese style?

Off the top of my head, I can only think of one open tournament coming up, the San Diego Grand Internationals.

http://www.sdgrandinternationals.com/

There's a traditional Japanese event at UC Riverside in early May. It's put on by the UCR Shotokan club. Here's a link to a PDF of their flyer.

http://www.karate.ucr.edu/docs/11shotokanWUKFposter.pdf

This June, Camarillo Shotokan is putting on a traditional Japanese style tournament. Their flyer is on their home page.

http://www.camarilloshotokan.com/

In August, there's a traditional Japanese karate tournament at CSU Long Beach that's part of L.A.'s Nisei Week celebration. There's actually karate, judo, AND kendo all on one floor. Spectators have to stay in the bleachers though, so they can't see anything up close. Here's a link to Nikkei Games Karate. I don't know where judo and kendo info can be found.

http://www.nikkeikarate.com/

There aren't as many big tournaments around here as there used to be, especially open style. People are doing more small inter-school tournaments.

[JusticeZero]

Instructor may be holding you back from competing for other reasons that you aren't considering, possibly because you and/or others in your position who ask too soon are too bound in your own ego to consider the desires and positions of those around you.

I know in my organization we ask students to not visit other schools until they have reached a certain basic level of skill. This is not because we don't want them to see other schools, but rather because we don't want representatives of our academia looking like fools, making oblivious etiquette breaches and pridefully showing cringeworthy lack of skill and understanding of basic concepts.

What if you rush out to a competition, flail about because your level of skill is nowhere near where you thought it was (the students I worked with were shocked at how awful they actually were when I recorded them on camera), insult other instructors inadvertently, and generally make a fool of yourself, all while wearing the colors of your school organization?

Your mestre's reputation would be damaged, they would have to spend a fair amount of time apologizing for you, and it is very possible that you would be asked not to train with your martial art school anymore.

When you go out to compete or participate in the activities of other schools, you represent your school. If you do well and comport yourself well, it reflects well on your mestre and helps him or her to gather and keep good students, to have goodwill and be able to work with other schools in your area and abroad. If you do poorly and do things which you might later wince at, not so good.

You might look back and laugh at the incidents where you did the equivalent of raising an outcry wanting your gazpacho soup served hot. Your teacher will likely be hearing about that incident for quite some time; months later, they will want to work with another school on setting up a tournament or bringing up a guest teacher or something only to hear "I don't know, the last time I heard about any of your students, they ________.. I only work with GOOD teachers.." And your teacher winces because they know that all the advanced students and teachers that were there, and all their teachers, heard about it, heard what school you were representing, and in their minds they were making the Golden Arches "M" sign.

[holley]

I have been doing martial arts for since i was 12 and now i am 20 years old. I have competed a few times. In Tae kwon do i got fist place for katas or forms, and then 1 place for sparring.

I guess i just have to be patient about karate tournaments though. I just have to be content with doing demos. wich i my karate school is doing one on april 30 so at the end of this month. I am doing a bunch of katas on my own. then doing some self defnse with the class.