WKA NATIONALS, 2008

Once again Daniel competed in the WKA National Tournament in Ottawa from May 15 - May 19th. We left very early Thursday morning and had a fairly uneventful flight. Daniel has terrible air sickness and managed to keep everything down until we hit the ground in Ottawa and the brakes kicked in. Oh well, only one puke session on the entire flight was pretty good for D.



The inside of the plane going to Ottawa



The Great Lakes through the window on the way there



Daniel feeling pretty good and having a snack on the way there


Once in Ottawa we attempted to see the inside of the Parliament buildings, but no such luck. A protest about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine had it on lock down. Oh well, there is always next year. We checked into the 4 points Sheraton just across the river in Hull, Quebec and Daniel went for a short swim. Grey's Anatomy was on that night and I wasn't missing that, not even for karate!!

Daniel cut weight the week before the tournament started so, there was no eating from the time we touched down (2:00 pm Thursday) until weigh in at 2:00 pm on Friday. He made his weight class of -35 kgs and then he got to enjoy a wonderful Subway sub and get ready for fighting Friday night.



Daniel and his friend, Noah listening to Sensei Cody and Sensei Gary at the Alberta team meeting.



Team Alberta getting the low down from "Mr. President" of Alberta, Sensei Cody Diesbourg(in the shorts) and Sensei Gary Vig.



The Team!

Daniel had 5 fighters in his division for Continuous and I don't know if he just wasn't conditioned enough or the cutting weight drained his energy, but he ended up 4th out of the five and was very disappointed. Last year he got the bronze medal out of four fighters. Maybe he was a little over confident, I don't know. We are not disappointed, he did really well and went all that way to compete and that is what he did. When we got home yesterday he told Claire that he wants to do karate forever and she said "you mean you are going to compete until you are like, 80?". Daniel said "until my body won't let me anymore." Too funny.



When the kids weigh in and register for the tournament, they are given cards with their division and if fighting, their weight. When the fighting divisions are ready to start, they call the age group. For Daniel it is 12 and under boys. They put all these envelopes on the floor and the kids are to put the card they received for that division on the envelope that has their weight class written on it. Once they have "thrown in their card" they stand around and pretend that they aren't looking, but they are totally scoping out their competition and counting the number of cards on their envelope hoping for no more than three so that they can get a "by" to Worlds. This is quite possible in Continuous fighting, but rare in Point fighting. Not many of the eastern kids (Ontario and Quebec) compete in Continuous, but they all do Point.

On Saturday Daniel competed in the -35 kg Point Fighting Division. There were 13 fighters in his division and it is two rounds of single elimination. This means that you have to keep winning your fights to advance up the ladder. Daniel lost his 1st fight in the 1st round so he got to sit. he won his 1st fight in the 2nd round and then lost his next fight so he was finished for the day. Winning 1 fight was not enough for him to advance to the finals on Sunday so, he was done for the weekend. Again, not the result that he wanted, but that is OK and he will re group and try again next year.


Daniel standing waiting for the 2nd round of point to start. He is with his coaches, Sensie Gary and Sensei Sean. They are awesome and we would not be there at Nationals if it wasn't for them. Sean was competing for thr 1st time in the adult divisions this year and he did incredible. Sensei Gary was not competing and was just there to coach our kids. He has a 3 month old baby at home and paid his own way to Ottawa to be there with our kids. There are just no words to describe how amazing that is and how much he means to all of us. And his wife, Wendy, deserves a hand too, for supporting him and our kids behind the scenes.

After everyone in our group had finished fighting Saturday night (about 6:30 pm) we all headed back to out rooms so tht the kids could shower and then met in the lobby and walked over to a great little french bistro/deli/bar restaurant for supper. The funniest thing was that Dave Rogers (Stephanie's husband) was outside at the front of the hotel waiting for us all to get organized in the lobby and we didn't really notice that he wasn't with us and we all headed out the back of the hotel to the restaurant. So... we were sitting at the table and Stephanie's phone rings. It is, of course, Dave, wondering where we all went!!! Her managed to make it to us with some text messaged directions, but I am sure that Stephanie will be paying for the fact that she left her husband behind for quite some time.

At the restaurant, Daniel and the rest of the kids sat at their own table. I gave Daniel my camera so most of these pics were taken by him. He had a great time eating pasta with butter and even ordered himself a great big piece of chocolate cake!!! Without asking, I might add!! He also had chocolate milk, so by the time we got back to the room, Daniel was flying! He did not fall asleep until after midnight!


The kid's table


The adult's table


Gabrielle by Daniel


Daniel's new friend, Doug, helping him eat his giant piece of cake.


Daniel taken by Doug



Austin and Joe


Daniel taking a picture of Alex taking a picture.


Stacey taken, by Daniel

On sunday we were back at the tournament to cheer everyone on for the final day of fighting. Stacey won gold in point, Alex won gold in point, Joe got 4th place in point and so did Sensei Sean and John. Our fearless leader, Sensei Cody got 2nd in traditional kata, 1st in bow kata, 2nd in musical weapons and 2nd or 3rd in point. Team Alberta cam e home with a total of 24 medals, the best they have ever done. Everyone headed back to the hotel by about 4:00 pm and the kids hit the pool for a couple of hours where they tried their hardest to drown Josh. Later we all pitched in and ordered pizza and had a few drinks. The kids hung out in Josh's room and watched videos on Youtube and a movie. Parent's party was shut down by 11:00 pm when we received our warning from the front desk to keep it down. It was a good thing as a number of our team members were flying out at 7:30 am the next morning.


Karate Moms (I totally stole this pic from Barb's Facebook album so I have to give her props).


New friends from Ontario


The Karate Dads


Daniel and I didn't fly home until 7:40 pm on Monday night so we got to sleep in and checked out of the hotel shortly after 12:00 pm. We headed down to Byward Market in Down town Ottawa and had lunch at our favourite place, Le Moulin De Provence. It is an amazing authentic french bakery where you can sit and just watch the people. Daniel bought a dragon at an outside vendor and we made Claire a beautiful necklace at a bead store. I found a new line of handbags that I am now in love with. Matt and Nat make all vegan handbags and if you didn't know , you would think they were leather. My new bag is green and beautiful and Steph will get to see it in a week!!

We made it to the airport in lots of time and headed home with NO PUKING! D slept most of the way and I redosed him with Gravol an hour before we landed. He slept all the way home from the airport and went straight to bed when we got home.


Sky going home


Daniel asleep on the plane ride home.


Needless to say we had an AMAZING time and can't wait to do it again next year!