The karate tournament went well. All the little kids were fun. It made me sort
of miss being in a big dojo (meaning more the the 4 people I have trained with
for years). The tournament was open to any of the Okinawan or Japanese karate
styles, but the host was shorin-ryu so there was definitely a majority of that
style represented. There were also several shotokan practitioners represented,
the style I'm more familiar with, as well as some others. I was amused that a
few of the shorin-ryu judges seemed to constantly need to compare to shotokan
and make disparaging remarks. As with many things there's always a couple. I
found it funny, because it was often coming from people who obviously had
little experience in shotokan. Was it an inferiority complex making them
constantly compare and justify their style in comparison to shotokan? They
never talked to me, just over and around me, so I didn't really say much about
it. I was a guest judge and frankly I've never felt particular need to justify
the style I learned, much less compare it to a style, albeit with similar
roots, that I have little to no experience. It is what it is. I appreciated
that my instructor never tried to justify shotokan, there are differences in
style, each school thinks they are right and has different strengths based on
how they do things, we (at my original dojo) are learning shotokan with all
its inherent strengths and weaknesses. I did get to have a pleasant short
conversation with the director and head sensei, Ken Bladyka, at the
<http://www.okadojo.com> who were the tourney hosts. I was pleasantly
surprised and might take him up on his invitation to come by and visit the
school sometime. Perhaps I should start over as a spanking new white belt, I
do sort of miss the larger dojo atmosphere.

I'm a bit behind on my mail, so I'm a few issues behind with this. After my
week of vacation I'm slowly sifting through my mailbox. For more on the EFF
dissection of certain sections of the USA Patriot Act and why they should be
allowed to sunset, please see <http://www.eff.com/Privacy/Surveillance/Terroris
m/PATRIOT/sunset/>