I didn’t go to the NASKA karate tournament in New York city. I have decided to sit out of the NASKA circuit for the rest of the year. I may do the odd local karate tournament later in the fall as I’m regrouping with fixing up all my forms with the excellent feedback I received from everybody who saw my weapons videos so far.
See Karate T-Shirts for some excellent designs.
Free Spirit Activewear, designer of martial arts t shirts, will not use the Cafepress website for merchandising of its t shirts. Cafepress is a website that designers can submit designs to and if customers order a shirt, Cafepress will make and ship the shirt out on behalf of the designer. This system uses a heat transfer method of putting designs on t shirts which is inferior in quality to screen printing. Free Spirit Activewear uses screen printing for all of its martial arts t shirts and tank tops.
Clint Leung, owner of Free Spirit Activewear says, “We would rather not sacrifice the high quality of our martial arts t shirts by using cheap heat transfers since graphics never last very long with that method. We will stick with screen printing.”
Therefore, t shirts featuring the Martial Arts For Life and Karate Queen designs will still be available only directly through the Free Spirit Activewear website.
Free Spirit Activewear has a special deal for its martial arts karate t shirts where if a customer orders nine or more t shirts online, shipping within North America will be free of charge. So if you are part of a group or a martial arts school, get a bulk order together for at least nine t shirts of any design and size at Free Spirit Activewear and shipping will be free.
I ran into Bruce Smith at the US Capitol Classics. Bruce is the president of WOMAA (World Organization of Martial Arts Athletes) and he told me that the world event in 2007 will be in either April or May in Shannon, Ireland. I have to find out where Shannon is but apparently it is in the west coast of the country. He also said that everyone who qualified for this year’s event that was cancelled, automatically qualifies for next year. So I guess I will be off to Ireland in 2007.
See Martial Arts Wear at Free Spirit Activewear
So far, the feedback I’ve received for my two martial art weapons videos are fairly consistent. That is, most martial artists consider my karate bo form to be the better one for competition compared to my three section staff form. I’ve gotten feedback from users of three different martial arts websites so far; Sport Martial Arts and Karate Tournaments Online, Karate Forums and About Martial Arts. For my three section staff, I’ll have to revisit the slow areas which seem to be throwing off a lot of people as well as the footwork. There are some weak points in my bo form too but it will take awhile to digest all the comments. This is definitely a good exercise as I’m learning quite a lot. It always is advantageous to get extra sets of eyes to check out your form no matter how many years of competition you have had. I will definitely do a similar video analysis with my empty hand forms soon.
See Martial Art Shirts at Free Spirit Activewear
Came back from the US Capitol Classics in Washington DC. This is an annual 5 rated NASKA (North America Sport Karate Association) tournament. Our senior black belt division once again had only three judges. Not only that, but one of the judges left in mid division and was replaced by another. This was suppose to be against the rules but none of the competitors challenged it. Is this the shape of things to come? For a 5 rated event, this type of things is pretty bad. I made a last minute decision to go to DC just two days before the event had drove 11 hours to get there. It took 11 hours to get back home too. That’s a long way to travel for this type of judging, especially for a 5 rated event.
See karate clothing at Free Spirit Activewear
There’s also a video clip of the Chinese kung fu wushu three section staff which is considered to be one of the most difficult martial art weapons to master. Again, this form shot on video is performed by NASKA/NBL/WSKF World Champion Clint Leung. The video showing martial arts techniques is at Martial Arts Weapons Kung Fu Three Section Staff Video.
Also, see Martial Arts Kung Fu T-Shirts at Free Spirit Activewear.
Free Spirit Activewear has added a video clip showing a demonstration of the martial arts weapon karate bo staff. The karate weapons techniques shown in this form is performed by Clint Cora, a world champion from the NASKA, NBL and WSKF tournament circuits. Clint does a creative weapons form for competition here in this video. It is not a wild and crazy as the extreme forms that are seen at many tournaments these days but this bo form is not considered traditional either. See this at Martial Arts Weapons Karate Bo Staff Video.
Also see Martial Arts Karate T Shirts at Free Spirit Activewear.
I’m still deciding whether to go to the Capitol Classics martial arts competition in Washington DC for this coming weekend. If I do go, it will be a driving road trip which will take about 10 hours from Montreal. This will be my longest road trip for a martial arts event ever. The Battle of Atlanta might have been my last NASKA karate tournament of the year but since there are officially five more this year, I will be deciding on whether to attend each one as we go. Like many other competitors on the NASKA circuit, I am finding that 13 events is just too many to go to in a year for away trips. A big problem is that each and every event counts towards NASKA points and for this year, I don’t know if I’ll be able to catch my main competition in points even if I went to all events. My other option is to leave NASKA for the rest of the year and just work on forms for next year plus maybe compete in the odd local tournament. If Washington is a go, it will likely be a last minute decision this week.
See Martial Arts T Shirts Online at Free Spirit Activewear.
Once martial arts competitors and coaches decide to follow one of the large karate circuits like NASKA or NBL, it will soon be realized that participation in this sport can be very expensive. Many years ago, I attended a seminar conducted by Charlie Lee and he said that the only main difference between many national and local competitors is that the national ones have the funds to travel. I’ve been on both the NBL and NASKA circuits. I’ve also dabbled in international overseas competition as well so I’ve learned a few tricks over the years to help save some overall costs involved in competition.
Read the article at Budget Travel for Martial Arts Karate Tournaments
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