Some Benefits from the Japan Trip by Charles Choi

This year's taikai was my first, and as the most junior student there, I was very, very nervous. I was very aware that our dojo has always won medals at taikai, and I knew I was the weak link, and that was very, very stressful.

It was no secret that my cutting was nowhere where I wanted it to be -- in cutting classes, I usually didn't make it through mats, and just had to hack again and again at mats in front of everyone. The knowledge that I might do that in front of other dojos and embarrass not only myself but my sensei, my dojo and everyone I came with really weighed heavily on me.

The first magic moment I experienced in Machida was during a morning cutting session a day or two before taikai, when a tip Mukai-sensei gave me suddenly helped me cut through mats with pretty much every swing. I went from kesais to godangiri to rokudangiri in the span of about five minutes. It was startling, and started to give me hope that I might not make a complete fool of myself, my sensei and my dojo at taikai.

Then came the day of the taikai, when the second magic moment came. It had to do with how prepared I suddenly felt.

Sensei's always been very strict with us in class, pointing out every single little flaw, and I'm sure to many of us it sometimes seemed we couldn't do anything right. (I get the sense from the senpai that we kouhai have it easy compared to what they experienced!) But at taikai, I suddenly felt that standard of excellence really pay off.

It was a lot of little things. For instance, during kata seminars, it felt like our dojo moved like a well-oiled machine out of habit. Don't get me wrong -- I still have a very long way to go -- but things I had by now taken for granted often served me well.

And during taikai itself, I certainly went further than I thought I would. I made it past the first round in cutting, and made it all the way to pre-semifinals in gekken. Content with myself, given less than a year of training.

So overall, I'm feeling much more confident in myself than before. Not sure if it's deserved confidence, but I'll take what I can get.