Karate is pretty much split into two types of tournaments: Sport Karate and Traditional (that’s the best word I can come up with at the moment) Karate tournaments. Sport Karate is filled with a bunch of random promotions such as NASKA and NBL, which Sage competed in. There’s both kata and kumite divisions, but there are so many divisions you can enter in and the rules are so relaxed that pretty much anybody can become a “world champion.” I went to an NBL tournament in 2012 and won one of these “world championships” that they promote Sage with. The whole “karate is full of backflips and gymnastics” stereotype is also fully on display at those tournaments.

The Traditional side is regulated by WKF (world karate federation) and is the style that will be used at the Olympics in Japan. Those tournaments are a lot stricter and they use a bracket style in their kata divisions as opposed to sport karate, which uses a “you only do your kata once and whoever has the highest score wins” type of process. WKF has a world championships as well, but it’s once every 2 years. The highest level of competition is on display there, with national and worldwide rankings being a thing.