Journey To Geneva - Part 2

A description of my Journey to the WUMA World Championships in Geneva in 2026

It's been a while since I updated this blog. Last I left it I had just won the European Championship at the end of June 2025. As I'm writing this now, it's mid-November (17th). Yesterday was the 37th WUMA National Championships, and before that, on the 28th of September, was the AFSO British Open.

In the British Open I placed 1st in the Open Hand Kata and 2nd in the Kobudo Weapons Kata. It was a good performance in the open hand division, albeit a bit cramped for space with only 7 mats across instead of the usual 11/12 in the weapons division. I almost hit the spectators that were standing right by the ends of the mat space with the Three-Part Staff (my writings on the origins can be found in my portfolio). My good luck from the Euros carried over to this one, but unfortunately my luck ran out in the Nationals.

In the Nationals I got 1 gold (Open Hand U17) and 3 silvers (Open Hand 18+, Open Style 18+, and Kobudo Weapons 18+). In the Open Hand and Open Style 18+ I went up against Ashu Raj Shrestha, a Goju-Ryu black belt who has been a WUMA member for 32 years and is the National Director for Nepal, who also trains in Japan with the IOGKF headquarters. The scores between us were close: a 7-point difference in the first division and a 2-point difference in the second division. But my biggest failure was in the weapons division; in the Europeans it was me (Wales), Spain, England and Nepal (??). Spain and Nepal weren't in the division this time, leaving just me and England, whom I completely destroyed last time, but she was ready this time, training specifically to best me, but all the training wasn't that worth it as I messed up big time.

As we know, the three-sectional staff consists of three sticks connected by a chain, and attacks are done by swinging the ends around or holding the ends like batons. Many of the moves require letting go and dropping the weapon to catch and control it. For the Nationals, I bought myself a new staff made of rattan with chains and a ball bearing instead of my usual cord. This backfired on me; chains are way more temperamental, as the ball bearing makes them rotate and swing more, and this is how I messed up. In the 5th move in the whole kata, where from a figure eight you catch the flail of the weapon, I didn't catch the staff, and it rotated and narrowly escaped my grasp. Eventually I caught the staff, but it was too late, and I couldn't play it off cool as I wanted to. Then, desperate to try and make everything else better to account for the lost score from my dropping and losing weapon control, I went in faster with more power, which led me to hit myself on the back of the head in the last few moves, causing me to lose yet another point, giving me an average score of 7.9 (min 7.5, max 9.9), whereas last time I had an average score of 8.3. This could've been my chance to finally get a gold in the weapons, but the universe has its way; a winning streak has to end to make sure that my ego doesn't get too inflated and that I know I am not that guy, I can still lose.

Right before i was going to publish i remembered this one thing, the WUMA world championships fell through a few months ago and a new venue and everything had to be chosen, leaving us all unsure of what will happen next.