On October 9 and 10 my brother and sister and I went to the Diamond Nationals, an International Karate Tournament that is held each year in Minneapolis, MN. and earned 8 trophies We participated in traditional karate form events, weapons forms, and musical open divisions.
If you want to know karate and go to this tournament then you have to devote every night to practice in a gym, or you can learn from a video. Now remember it is hard to learn martial arts off a video but not impossible or you can even use a book. Karate is the same thing whether you learn it from someone or something and now if you want to see a karate martial artist you could go to the Diamond Nationals. Then you are going to have to type the 2015 Diamond National and see what it is all about on google or YouTube.
There are two different types of forms that don’t use weapons: there is the extreme form and there is a traditional form. I think that the extreme forms are more fun to watch than the traditional forms. The traditional forms are more beautiful than the extreme form but the extreme form is more fun. Extreme forms have a lot of gymnastics in them. Traditional forms use more jumps, kicks, blocks, and chops. And do you know what’s the best part all of this is the gymnastics and the speed and they look like they’re having fun. I can’t do all of those flips and the jumps. I can’t do that yet at least. And I believe that anything can happen and that will happen for me someday. This time I earned a fourth place trophy in traditional forms, my sister earned a finalist award, and my brother earned third place.
There are extreme and traditional weapons forms too. My sister took third place with her traditional bo form. My brother took first place. I took fourth place. Here are the pictures of our bos:
Also, you can get strong by doing karate. Have you ever seen the remake of the Karate Kid? If you see Bruce Lee do a push up with his two fingers then that means you watch the Bruce Lee movies. You can see people do the same thing he did live at this tournament! To view the demo winners of the Diamond Nationals, please see the picture of the 2015 team “infinity.” All of these guys are black belts and you do not want to mess with them!
Now we are now going to show one more competitor. Everyone please welcome Reid Presley.
This guy is a master of a 2 bo form. Man, he does tricks like magic tricks as he spins two bos at the same time. It is not a bow and arrow. It is like a baton you have seen in those marching bands, but cooler.
Most of these forms use music. The music forms are called the ‘open’ division. My brother earned second place in the musical division and my sister won first place. In musical forms, you can do anything you want.
my brother, my sister, my momma, my other two sisters and I all had fun and we would go to it again if we have the chance. But it’s not all about the trophies: it’s about how hard we work and if we had a great time. The Diamond Nationals have so many schools from all over the world. It’s especially difficult in the traditional Division, but we all work hard and we do it and that’s the best part. Sorry. I lied. That’s not the best part. Going to the finals that are showcased at the end of the tournament is the best part! You get to see all of the extreme guys together for all of the NASKA (nationally ranked karate people) competitors and if you win a diamond ring that means you are being ranked. You aren’t ranked in your division, but who is the best one there. And now I’m coming to the end of my article. It was fun writing about it. And remember it not everything about winning. Well, the trophies are cool.
