Chapter 136: Tournament Competition - Do or Not Do, that is the Question

Competitive tournaments have been a mainstay of karate dojo since as far back as I can remember or discover in researching the subject. The big question is this, "Are tournaments a good thing and do practitioners benefit from them?" 

Yes, and yes and it depends, i.e., it depends on our intent. If the intent is to stress ourselves for training and practice it is a good thing to to all-round. If the intent is to stress ourselves with the intent of exposing ourselves to the adrenaline chemical effects that come with such things then for that purpose it is a good thing. 

If it is to train our minds and bodies to handle adrenal stress conditions of being attacked in a social or asocial situation then it is, "good and not good enough." It is good because any stress encountered that triggers our adrenal stress systems for fight-n-flight is good because our minds when dealing with the chemical dump effects, not the trigger that sets it off but effects, is a good thing for training. I would say that any effort in training or life that triggers any level of adrenaline-based effects provides us an opportunity to resist and suppress some or most of those effects. It is better to trigger those effects where the failure to suppress or handle them does NOT mean grave harm or death. Tournaments are a great way to expose ourselves, for self-protection defenses, to the chemicals in a safe way but, know this, it isn't going to be enough. 

Now, a bit of a caveat is what I tell practitioners interested in tournaments. If your intent is strictly competition, trophies and the various other benefits then go in with that intent. If your intent is to learn about and train in handling adrenaline stress-conditions and effects for self-protection then it is a good beginning but don't enter in wanting to, expecting to or working toward, "Winning." Winning puts a completely different mind-set that if triggered in a self-defense protection situation can lead you to doing things and having a mind-set and mind-state that could cause you to go beyond self-defense defense and into the legal realm, a dangers environment often stacked against you from the start. 

Make sure you goals and objectives in tournament participation are clear, intentional and remain in your focused mind-state from beginning to end. Otherwise, your just competing and it ain't for self-protective defense purposes. 

What I would tell my dojo-mates is, “Everything you do contributes as a whole to your abilities, conditioned actions and training, practice and application as long as you remain focused on the intent behind, objective to, each separate item or model or method or system you train and practice in. It’s importance stands for any aspect of training in karate but more so in the arena and system we all inappropriately refer to as “Karate for Self-defense.” When we train primarily for self-protection then our intent in what we do regardless if tournament or seminar based all the way up to the “Reality based stress-conditioned training” done to get as close as possible to the reality of aggressions and violence as possible.