World Cup Summary

I received this letter from a competitor who wanted to express how things felt from her perspective. I thought that the mail perfectly articulated many of the great things that I've been saying about GKR for years Here's the letter...

It was great to spectate so close to the action

What I loved about the event were the numerous incidents that occurred throughout the weekend that inspired me and made me feel really good to be part of GKR.

The open divisions were fantastic to watch. Even though many people had left the venue by then, there was still an amazing atmosphere. The fact that we were able to watch right from the ringside was a tremendous bonus.

The kata performances made me want to get back to practising straight away and it was fascinating to see the different personal interpretation of the same Kata. It was easy to understand the judges scores at this level. At lower levels, the scoring is often quite bewildering.

The Kumite opens were tremendously exciting and inspirational and anyone who watched them should have learnt something to take back to the dojo and incorporate into their own training.

The opens certainly made me feel that there is an amazing journey ahead of us.

The demonstrations were also inspiring and beautiful to watch but you have already written about them so I will not. Instead, I would like to tell you about some of the ‘little’ inspirational incidents.

Firstly, walking around in Birmingham and seeing GKR people from around the world, chatting to people with GKR jackets and T shirts who we passed in the street or hotel foyer made us feel part of something really special.

My children and I returned to our hotel on Saturday evening, still wearing our Gis and as we waited for the lift a Sensei we had never met before struck up a conversation with us and asked how we had got on in our events and took the time to congratulate us on our results. This made a big impression on my children.

I met a lady from New Zealand who was competing and went on to win double silver in the veteran 3^rd Kyus and above. She took the time to track me down after my event and ask how I had got on.

On Sunday I saw several children practising Kata even though their events were over the previous day and they were very tired. I also saw a group of children from UK, USA. Australia and New Zealand, set up their own Kumite ‘event’ in the warm up area. They were taking it in turns to be the judge, referee and score keepers and also taking it in turns to fight each other and discuss different techniques that they had seen their heros perform during the day.

What I always enjoy about tournaments though, is seeing people of all shapes and sizes and all ages achieving something. I met a 69 year old Australian brown belt lady who had taken up Karate at the age of 65. She was tiny and really amazing to watch in her kumite event. What an achievement and inspiration to us all.

I watched a very young competitor who I thought show a lot of guts in his kumite and I asked him afterwards what he was thinking about when he stepped up to the ring. He simply said ‘I imagined I was my Sensei’.