Friendship Tournament
Apr. 28th, 2012 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eternaleponineEvery year, Tae San Taekwondo Academy hosts a "Friendship Tournament". This is the school where Master Paul trained, and it's the head instructor from Tae San who comes to do our testing, so the schools are kind of connected. As a result, we were invited to participate in the tournament, and became the first "outsiders" to compete there.
And we did really well. I'm proud of my school. We had six people competing, and we brought home quite a few gold medals. Before continuing, I will give the caveat that in the majority of the divisions, there were only three people, so everyone was going to get a medal. Even so, I think we only took one bronze. Everything else was gold or silver.
That is two silvers and a gold, for the record.
The first event was poomse (form), and I got silver. R. took gold, and the other guy in our division got bronze. I can see why they awarded R. the gold, because his movements had more power than mine, but I had better stances, so that one I'm mildly irked about. So it goes. At least I came in second, right?
Just as an aside, for poomse and breaking, the divisions included both men and women, and were decided by rank and age, so that the lower belts who were kids were competing against each other, and then it was R. (who is older than me), me, and T. (who was a teenage boy, and apparently forgot the name of his form at the beginning).
Next was breaking. I have been going back and forth on what break I was going to do, because I wanted to do something impressive, but I also wanted to be successful at it. In the end, I just did side kick through one board, and did it easily on the first try. I wanted to do two boards, but my success rate with that isn't great, so I decided not to take the chance at failing completely. I also considered doing slide-up side kick (where you kick with your front leg rather than the rear) but the texture of their floor is REALLY different from ours, and I was honestly afraid it was going to mess me up, so I just stuck with what I knew I could do.
R. did side kick through two boards, and T. did a flying side kick. R. got gold again, and T. and I tied for silver. I can't actually remember, but T. may have had to do two attempts on the break, which would explain why he and I scored the same when what he was doing was more difficult. R. broke both boards on his first try, of course.
Oh, and thank goodness for the board holders! I totally forgot what to do after the board is broken – I remembered to bow and everything, but forgot to kneel while the judges did my scores, and one of my holders leaned over and whispered, "Kneel," so I didn't just wander off. He also told me I did a good job, which was nice of him.
I had a bit of a break before my sparring match, during which I was recruited on two different occasions to actually give the medals for different events. The first time my name was called, I was rather confused, especially when Master Lesinski said, "You'll be doing the medals." He told me what to do, and off I went. As he said, "There's no standing around here. You'll be put to work." Since sparring was going on, it was pretty much all hands on deck – two rings meant eight corner judges, four coaches, two head judges, two referees... it didn't leave a lot of extra people! R. actually got recruited to be a corner judge. I'm glad they didn't ask me! Medals are much easier to handle.
Finally it was my turn to spar. I had already figured out who I was going to be up against, because there was only one other female my size competing! She ONLY competed in sparring, as far as I could tell, and I have to wonder if she wasn't talked into it just to make sure there was someone for me to compete against. I'm not sure. She was definitely younger than me, but size-wise (and rank-wise – she was also a green belt) we were pretty evenly matched.
She told me before the match that it was only her second time sparring with full gear on, so I was honestly expecting it to be a fairly easy match. I guess what she really meant is that she just hadn't had arm and leg guards, but obviously she had been doing some sparring practice, because she came right in on the attack from the word go. (Or whatever 'go' is in Korean – I've forgotten and couldn't spell it anyway! Okay, apparently its shi-jak according to Wikipedia.)
I very quickly had to figure out how to keep her at bay, and get in my own hits, but I was doing all right holding my own in the first 90 second round. Really, I was more than holding my own, because I managed to knock my opponent completely off her feet at least once, possibly twice. It was three times total, but I don't remember which rounds they happened in. (Matches for colored belts – anything below black – are two 90 second rounds with a 30 second break in between.) I went over to my corner and my coach (not Master Paul, although I could have asked him to come over if I'd wanted – instead I had the guy who'd visited our school last week, so at least it was someone I knew) told me to try to keep in close, because if she can't get in kicks, then I get to decide when to back up and throw a kick.
I don't know if that's the advice he gives everyone, but in any case, it worked, and I was really, really pleased when they announced, "Chung sung." (Blue wins.) Of course my lungs were burning at that point, because it was such a hard fought match, and I'm still coughing/wheezing a bit hours later, but I got gold – IN SPARRING. Which I honestly thought was my weakest event, but then, I'm always going up against R. who has a serious size/power advantage over me.
I stuck around until the end of the tournament, and got to see some pretty intense matches between some of the black belts. It was a lot of fun, and everyone was really friendly and welcoming, and I look forward to being able to do it again next year.
Also, R.'s wife (who is also A's mom - she was supposed to compete today but didn't because she hurt her ankle) apparently got video of me... doing what, I'm not sure. Possibly sparring, but it may have been one of the other events. So if she sends me that, I will have to put it on YouTube or something so people can see it.
And we did really well. I'm proud of my school. We had six people competing, and we brought home quite a few gold medals. Before continuing, I will give the caveat that in the majority of the divisions, there were only three people, so everyone was going to get a medal. Even so, I think we only took one bronze. Everything else was gold or silver.
That is two silvers and a gold, for the record.
The first event was poomse (form), and I got silver. R. took gold, and the other guy in our division got bronze. I can see why they awarded R. the gold, because his movements had more power than mine, but I had better stances, so that one I'm mildly irked about. So it goes. At least I came in second, right?
Just as an aside, for poomse and breaking, the divisions included both men and women, and were decided by rank and age, so that the lower belts who were kids were competing against each other, and then it was R. (who is older than me), me, and T. (who was a teenage boy, and apparently forgot the name of his form at the beginning).
Next was breaking. I have been going back and forth on what break I was going to do, because I wanted to do something impressive, but I also wanted to be successful at it. In the end, I just did side kick through one board, and did it easily on the first try. I wanted to do two boards, but my success rate with that isn't great, so I decided not to take the chance at failing completely. I also considered doing slide-up side kick (where you kick with your front leg rather than the rear) but the texture of their floor is REALLY different from ours, and I was honestly afraid it was going to mess me up, so I just stuck with what I knew I could do.
R. did side kick through two boards, and T. did a flying side kick. R. got gold again, and T. and I tied for silver. I can't actually remember, but T. may have had to do two attempts on the break, which would explain why he and I scored the same when what he was doing was more difficult. R. broke both boards on his first try, of course.
Oh, and thank goodness for the board holders! I totally forgot what to do after the board is broken – I remembered to bow and everything, but forgot to kneel while the judges did my scores, and one of my holders leaned over and whispered, "Kneel," so I didn't just wander off. He also told me I did a good job, which was nice of him.
I had a bit of a break before my sparring match, during which I was recruited on two different occasions to actually give the medals for different events. The first time my name was called, I was rather confused, especially when Master Lesinski said, "You'll be doing the medals." He told me what to do, and off I went. As he said, "There's no standing around here. You'll be put to work." Since sparring was going on, it was pretty much all hands on deck – two rings meant eight corner judges, four coaches, two head judges, two referees... it didn't leave a lot of extra people! R. actually got recruited to be a corner judge. I'm glad they didn't ask me! Medals are much easier to handle.
Finally it was my turn to spar. I had already figured out who I was going to be up against, because there was only one other female my size competing! She ONLY competed in sparring, as far as I could tell, and I have to wonder if she wasn't talked into it just to make sure there was someone for me to compete against. I'm not sure. She was definitely younger than me, but size-wise (and rank-wise – she was also a green belt) we were pretty evenly matched.
She told me before the match that it was only her second time sparring with full gear on, so I was honestly expecting it to be a fairly easy match. I guess what she really meant is that she just hadn't had arm and leg guards, but obviously she had been doing some sparring practice, because she came right in on the attack from the word go. (Or whatever 'go' is in Korean – I've forgotten and couldn't spell it anyway! Okay, apparently its shi-jak according to Wikipedia.)
I very quickly had to figure out how to keep her at bay, and get in my own hits, but I was doing all right holding my own in the first 90 second round. Really, I was more than holding my own, because I managed to knock my opponent completely off her feet at least once, possibly twice. It was three times total, but I don't remember which rounds they happened in. (Matches for colored belts – anything below black – are two 90 second rounds with a 30 second break in between.) I went over to my corner and my coach (not Master Paul, although I could have asked him to come over if I'd wanted – instead I had the guy who'd visited our school last week, so at least it was someone I knew) told me to try to keep in close, because if she can't get in kicks, then I get to decide when to back up and throw a kick.
I don't know if that's the advice he gives everyone, but in any case, it worked, and I was really, really pleased when they announced, "Chung sung." (Blue wins.) Of course my lungs were burning at that point, because it was such a hard fought match, and I'm still coughing/wheezing a bit hours later, but I got gold – IN SPARRING. Which I honestly thought was my weakest event, but then, I'm always going up against R. who has a serious size/power advantage over me.
I stuck around until the end of the tournament, and got to see some pretty intense matches between some of the black belts. It was a lot of fun, and everyone was really friendly and welcoming, and I look forward to being able to do it again next year.
Also, R.'s wife (who is also A's mom - she was supposed to compete today but didn't because she hurt her ankle) apparently got video of me... doing what, I'm not sure. Possibly sparring, but it may have been one of the other events. So if she sends me that, I will have to put it on YouTube or something so people can see it.
no subject
on 2012-04-30 03:26 pm (UTC)And I've already said this, but GO YOU! Awesome job!
no subject
on 2012-04-30 09:32 pm (UTC)I kind of wish I had actually gotten to KNOW what my scores were - they didn't tell us. We just got called over a little after the event and told where we placed, then went to the medal podium thing to get our medals.
The hardest one was after sparring, where I had to stay there for what felt like forever, and my calves were cramping, while they did the scoring. I did have my coach-for-the-moment there to talk with, at least.
no subject
on 2012-05-01 01:41 pm (UTC)Oooh medal podium. We just do it right there on the floor at the end of the bracket.
I've seen people just start stretching after sparring. We had one computer meltdown in the middle of a girls' bracket (10-12 year olds I think). One girl went off to talk to her coach while the computer worked, the other one hit the floor in a split and stretched to stay warmed up. Sometimes it's a weird mix of both formal and practical, at least where I've been.
no subject
on 2012-05-01 09:20 pm (UTC)But yes, medal podium. It was quite high, too, which made it interesting when we had a not-very-tall black belt giving us our medals - I had to lean way down for him to be able to put it over my head.
I'm hoping there will be some pictures at some point. :-)