A real end to an era

Well, I'm sitting here in an Internet cafe in Shibuya, a few days after the SKIF World Championships. As I expected, I did not get out of the eliminations in kata. I lost my first round in the kohaku competition, doing Empi against a German competitor. I missed a kiai.

Now, just as I said in 1992 and in 2000, I will not enter any more karate competitions. Since about maybe a month or two ago, I seldom trained to prepare for this world championships. It is totally unlike me to not be focused on a task at hand. Moreover, even during the tournament, after I had been eliminated, I felt very little of my accustomed need to be out there going against the best. I wasn't disappointed with the result. I didnt have any ambition to go out there again and show what I'm really made of.

This time is unlike the previous two "retirements." Following my exit from competition before, I had this nagging feeling in the back of my head that my time really hadn't come. I still felt as if there was a lot of fight left in me. But now, I am absolutely positive that I am no longer interested in competing in karate. It's the end of an era.

The good news is that the United States now has a world kata champion: Clay Morton.

He did a great job.