Championships

Championships occur almost twice a year in São Paulo. They don’t happen often because karate-wadokai is not the most popular of the styles, it was the karate taught in Japanese universities and thus only learned by few of the upper class society. There are two types of competitions in tournaments; fighting and performing solo sequences. Last year I won the São Paulo tournament for sequences and got second place for fighting. The importance of these tournaments is not only to get practice with new opponent that you never fought before or to get opinions on your performance by different teachers but also to teach the students spiritually. Before each tournament the founder of wadokai in Brasil always gives a speech of the importance of karate. In the tournament we learn how to use everything that we learned in class and use it into practice, this includes all moves like kicking and punching but most of all includes sportsmanship and self-control. In karate you can never actually hurt your opponent; to get a point is to get a kick or punch close enough and with your arm or leg slightly bend so that you show you could have destroyed your enemy, but you controlled yourself. This relates back to the ethical importance of karate, we fight for defense and self-growth, never for revenge, show ourselves or any other unethical reason. If one is to actually hurt the opponent you receive a warning and your opponent gets a point. Tournaments help remind students that there is much to learn, and that self-control and ethics comes above winning dishonestly.