My first Trophy

 

 

I had competed in Karate tournaments almost from the time I began. But I had never won a trophy doing so either. I did have success at an IKC inner school tournament, winning for my Wansu kata as a blue belt, but those shiai didn’t award trophies either.

 

In fact as a blue belt I competed at a tournament in York Pa, along with my wife who was a yellow belt. She won a 3^rd place trophy for her Seisan kata and I did not place. Of course she had been an athlete a long time, in many sports. Having a chance to succeed for her was just another experience. And she was also a Coach and a Phys Ed instructor.

 But my 2^nd tournament as a Black Belt in Harrisburg Pa. it was another story. Now it was really just a small statewide tournament hosted by an Isshinryu instructor. I had attended several Pennsylvania tournaments but was pretty unknown. I made the hour and a half drive to compete there. I competed in the Black Belt kata division and the Black Belt Weapons kata division as well as in Black Belk kumite.

On this day I won 3^rd place for my Tokumeni No Kun kata.

However the 3^rd place trophy was nice in and of itself.

Now I was by myself. No one I really knew was there either, no one congratulated me. Winning anything was pretty much a new experience for me.

I remember driving home with the trophy on the seat beside me.

And when I got home my wife was congratulated me.  And that was that.

Now no one in the Scranton area really knew me. I was not from there, and really had no acquaintances in the area. The people I knew from when I was studying Tang Soo Do were not happy that I had returned to Isshinryu, and at the Bank I worked at, well the simplest answer was there was no one there interested in karate. And the nature of my work there was not something I could describe to any of them either. I was pretty much an individual contributor in the Bank.

 

In fact the next day I took my trophy to work and placed the trophy on my desk. Of course it drew no compliments either during the day.

 

I had started my program at the Boys Club of Scranton. And I knew Mr. Lewis placed articles in the paper about the Club’s success at tournaments for publicity reasons.

 

I then figured out I should do the same, that was probably the right thing to do.

 

I contacted a local photographer and had him take some photos of me in various karate poses and with the trophy. Then I wrote a short article about my victory and my program through the Boys Club.

 

As it turned out the paper placed it in the Sunday edition, and on the first page of a section of the paper, the article looked very nice. I remember seeing that paper on Sunday morning. And that was about it. I never heard from anyone about that article.

 

Never a word about it, didn’t get more students. I have no idea what anyone who read it felt.

 

But I did learn many things, It really placed what winning at a tournament meant in perspective. Of course winning anything is always nice. But it may mean something to your friends and family, outside that it really means nothing at all.

 

Many more tournaments followed. Many of them against some of the better kata and kobudo competitors in the country. Eventually I did win more times. That competition really forced me to work and that was the most important thing. There were more victories and many more times I was just plugging away.

 

I came to realize that:

 

1. Winning meant who you were competing against.

2. Winning meant who was judging you.

3. Winning meant you won at that second, Another second later someone else might have won.

4, Winning meant that it was a contest and someone was going to win, regardless of how actually good you were.

5. And of course winning meant that you were being tested, to show who you really are. Win or not did not change that.

 

On the whole winning was the least important thing.

 

Being who you are was much more important.

 

So one day I did win that first trophy. Then life took hold and was far more interesting.