The tournament started with a bit of controversy for us. Emily Grace was assigned to compete with the 4-5 year olds yellow belts. That was fine and dandy with her; however, the 3 other children did not know their patterns; however, Emily grace did. The lead judge then inadvertently skipped her. So the ring judge decided to skip the standard patterns and just call out moves for the whole group to do one at a time. Then they on moved to one step striking combos……well I submitted a challenge thru my lead Instructor, Mr. Wiggins. Mr. Wiggins then submitted a formal challenge to the decision and a 15 minute discussion followed. Believe it or not, it actually ended well and I must thank Mr. Wiggins for his doggedness to give Emily a shot at showing her stuff (even if she had to compete then with the 6-8 year olds).
Emily took 2nd in striking
& 1st in Patterns…………WOOOOHOOOO. That’s my Girl!!!!
Next up was the boys. Tyler and Dalton landed in a large group of competitors comprised of 9-12 year olds. They did awesome, amazing, outstanding>>>Tyler man earned 1st in Patterns:
Dalton earned 3rd in Patterns:
Of course in sparring they drew each other in the first bracket & Dalton won (but Tyler showed tremendous heart):
Dalton sparred 3 more times. And trust me when I say, it was not easy. He did get in some good headshots, like this one:
Once against a 12 year old that was a good foot taller and my little man beat him 5-2. He even took a direct kick too the…..uh, um, well the picture says it all & yes he did get the point for the body kick he landed on the Giant:
Ultimately Dalton earned 2nd in Sparring by winning 3 of 4 matches. He showed speed, technique and grit. Those boys made me really proud today.As for me, well I had a pretty good day. Fortunately my pattern went strong and I received 1st Place for patterns:
Next up was sparring. I drew the pre-bracket round and had to spar just to earn a spot in the brackets. Won that 5-2, then went on to win 2 more matches to earn a spot against the same Martial Artist that I sparred in the April finals.Notice the fella on the right holding video cam, that's my Pop:
What, a jump Turn Kick?? LOL & it landed for 2 points!
Ultimately, I was able to win 3 of 3 Sparring matches to earn 1st Place in Sparring.
We had great rounds & I was blessed in winning the Sparring for UnderRank Adults.What a blast. Eventhough the Denson's brought home a boat load of hardware, more importantly was the kids fine display of competitiveness mixed with good sportsmanship. I just can't express the joy in seeing my young one's giving their all.
Thank you TKD-USA for enabling us to use the things you taught us to earn these awards!! You guys are the BEST!
BTW-I will post some video clips later next week, after we create them.
