Sport or no sport....

Hmmm..... I feel old.... No, thats not true..... I feel on the fringe of things is more precise.

I never did much sports, cause they bore me. The times i showed up for competitions, i usually won something, so its not that i am just down cause i have no successes. Its more that i really do not see the point. For me karate is all bout training, improving and plain just having fun. Deciding who is the "winner" or "loser" to me seems like a great way of shooting ourselves in the foot. (Not *that* many people can be the winner and how does the rest feel?)

Furthermore, when we look at how competitions are conducted, one often sees that its quite random who ultimately is determined the winner. Personal preference of the judges plays way too big part of the final result. Karate-do is (or should be, in my opinion) art, and who is qualified to decide who is more "arty"? This leads me to the conclusion that kata-competitions are *really* silly and should be skipped alltogether. Then kumite..... Hmmm.... Many points? Hardly seems to improve our ability to "kill with one blow"? Judges that are way inferior to the athletes they are passing judgements on? Rules that favor flashy techniques that leave you in big trouble in the real world? The overemphasis on being first in regards to timing? (Is it not cooler to be last....?) The constant discussions regarding how much contact? (Nobody seems to be any closer to agreeing what the correct level of contact should be, anyway) Coaches that reward aggressive behavior that puts our students at serious risk of injury? The fact that the competitions run for several hours and not even the families of the athletes can be bothered to show up?

In my opinion: Shobu ippon rules, 1 weightclass for males and one for females, no protectors except mouthguards + groinprotectors for males and breastprotectors for females. One competition pr year + the internal clubcompetition and maybe one friendly against another club.

This way we would not spend lots of energy supporting a style of karate that does very little to enhance our shotokan way of doing things. This would free up time and energy for trainingcamps, parties and oneday-events where everyone comes together to train. (And where everyone gets to do karate for more than 2 minutes....)

And good luck to all the participants of the IM.

:-)