2018 Miyagi and Tohoku Hokkaido Body Building Contest

It's finally finished. My almost half a year prep has come to an end and the contest is finished. So how did I do?

I got 9th place in Tohoku Hokkaido and 6th place in Miyagi. Happy with my placement but not satisfied so i'll be working twice as hard next year.

Lets break down how the contests unfolded. First up both contests were on the same day September 16, 2018. Athletes had to get to the Wakabayashi Culture center at 9 to start check ins. The check in was a little confusing but I think they tried their best to get everyone organized and sorted out.

After the check ins we were placed in a conference room with chairs and desk (hardly any space for pumping up). However later on we were shown the pump up room which was spacious and had a wall mirror so athletes could see their progress.

The Tohoku Hokkaido and Miyagi contests are very different from the Higashi Nihon contest. At the Higashi Nihon contest I was placed in a separate category from guys that were under 75kgs. But in the Miyagi and Tohoku Hokkaido contest there was no category by weight so we had an open event where anyone could enter. There were however categories by age at the Tohoku Hokkaido event. But in many of those cases you only had one person or three for a category so may guys walked away with a prize if they entered on of those. Prizes are given to the top six contestants of a contest so if only three or one person enters then their really are no losers. What baffled me though was when you had categories with one person and when the announcements for the winner was being made they asked that contestant to do a pose down. Pose down with who? He's the only one on the stage in his category.

From what I could see from how the categories were arranged I assume they decided to have the open  because there wouldn't be enough contestants for different categories. Also the bodybuilders in the north of Japan or much smaller and thinner than the bodybuilders from down south. I was probably the heaviest or one of the heaviest persons on stage for the open contest whereas in Tokyo I was one of the smallest on stage.

Back to how the day unfolded. After I checked in and relaxed and started figuring out the day moved my stuff to he pump up room because if its one thing I learnt from Tokyo, it's to make sure you grab a good spot early before the crowd comes rushing in. After I grabbed my spot and started carbing up and pumping up the official came in and said contestants would have to be on stage in about 10 mins so we should prepare and head down to the stage. That leads me to another thing. The contests in Japan are all in Japanese there was no English anywhere so if you aren't comfortable with speaking in Japanese then you'll have to watch the atmosphere in the room and know who is in your category. That way when you see that person heading to the stage. That will be your indicator to head down as well.

The Miyagi and Tohoku Hokkaido shows were back to back so I had to pose quite a bit for the day. I think that impacted negatively on my body because by the time the free posing section came around my body was beat. I was tired, thirsty, hungry and grumpy. But I completed my routines twice (everything was done twice) and did the posing twice for both contests. Luckily I had enough bananas and rice cakes to get me through the day.

In all it was a great day and I met some great guys. Everyone put in a lot of work for that day so i'll extremely happy for all the winners, especially the ones that traveled from far to get to the venue. Competing in any sport is a gamble, you can either win or you can try again. As for my, of course i'll never stop trying.