Tournament Success

Yesterday our school conducted an intramural tournament as a fundraiser for the American Heart Association. Aside from the benefit aspect, it was a no different from any other tournament at our school - meaning, it was great fun and provided a wonderful opportunity to see how well the students have progressed since the last one. Besides, as I said to my husband, where else can you watch three hours of martial arts, live, for free?

The day started out with a performance by our school's demo team. This group started out small, with no more than half a dozen students in addition to the staff, but has grown to over twenty-five people. Some of them are brand-new, and so their participation is limited. But the veterans are really getting polished. For me the high point was watching my grandson and another student execute beautiful matching butterfly kicks at the center of the demonstration space.

After that a number of the instructors demonstrated their forms. These complex sequences are breath-taking, especially the more advanced forms. One of the staff members who is preparing for Sa Bom (Fourth Degree or Master-level Black Belt) did a form which I had never seen before, and whose name I don't even know. Very impressive.

Going from there to the little kids' competition was not quite the same as going from the sublime to the ridiculous - more like going from the serious to the seriously cute. Sa Bom Nim took the littlest ones (under five) into the smaller dojang - I'll bet that was really fun to watch. I stayed with the older kids in the larger dojang, serving as scorekeeper for one of the two rings.

I noticed that the two rings were being managed a little differently, especially with regard to judging the forms competition. In the other ring, the judges announced the scores right away, whereas in our ring, the judges waited to announce the scores until two sets of competitors had finished. I'm not sure this was a good idea. Certainly the delay gives the judges more data to consider when determining scores, but on the other hand, the delay can blur their memory of an earlier competitor's performance. I also think that sometimes by the time the last set of competitors comes up, the judges forget the scores they gave earlier, so that the later scores tend to be disproportionately high. Maybe a way to solve this would be to post the scores on a large display which everyone, including the judges, can see.

Later, after the forms competition, we moved into sparring. For the most part, the quality of the sparring techniques seemed much improved over the last tournament. This is almost certainly due to the high-intensity sparring drills that have been used in class. There are still some kids who are one-dimensional, in that they only kick with the right leg, or only use one punch over and over. But more and more of the kids are using combinations, circling, and using effective blocking.

Finally at the end of the tournament, when everybody else was descending on the pizza, we adults got our chance. There were only seven of us, since several likely competitors had family obligations this weekend. I was the senior in the entire group - in more ways than one! I managed to execute my form very well and took first place in the green/red belt division. In sparring there were only two of us in the green/red belt women's division; my partner Jennie beat me by one point in overtime.

So I have a couple more ribbons to add to my collection of tournament mementos. And everybody had a good time.