Day 183: Cold Karate

Jenna had her first Karate tournament today and it involved her spending about 5 hours in a freezing cold high school hall. I have to say that I'm beyond impressed with how well she's done and is continuing to do.

Today Jenna's events were the Individual Kata, Team Kata and Individual Sparing (I can't remember the proper name for this one).

Jenna scored a 1st in her Individual Kata, a 2nd in her Individual Sparing and a 3rd in her Team Kata. She also came away with a cold that had her off school for a couple of days.

My photo for the day is of Jenna scoring a 'stomach level punch' in one of her 4 bouts on the way to coming 2nd outright in her age group. She did incredibly well considering she ended up having three bouts back to back with barely 5 minutes rest between them in the lead up to her final round.

Day 169: Training

Jenna's been learning Karate this year and she's been doing really well, so well that she's progressed through White and Yellow belts to her Orange belt quite quickly. We don't usually get to see Jenna doing her Karate because she does it in the evenings during the week. This weekend we took her to an extra class because she's training for a tournament, it's on in a couple of weeks and she'll be competing in the Group Kata for her Dojo.

I think the Group Kata is kind of like synchronised swimming but instead of the nose plugs, swimming caps, and water they have Karate Pajamas (also known as a Gi) and they shout after certain punches or moves (this is the Ki-ai)... so apart from the bare feet and the synchronisation I guess they're really not that similar at all. Perhaps I should have reconsidered my simile.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jenna do her training today but what made me really proud was when the regional manager, Sensei Greg, introduced himself and started telling me how impressed he is with Jenna's progress. It seems Jenna has the right combination of focus and natural ability that makes for an excellent student. This is so much better than Little Athletics!