karate tournament - april 1st

let's see...the day officially starts off at 1:30 a.m. when i finally head to bed and faith is laying in bed crying because her stomach hurts. now, this kid is tough and she doesn't cry much so i know she's really in pain. so, i get mom and let her know what's happening. dad soon joins us in the waiting game to see what's going on - as well as moral support and making sure we get her coke, jello, a bath and anything else she wants to help her get better. we all get asleep around 3:30.


the next memory is at 5:30 when we're all waking up to get ready to head to the tournament 2 1/2 hours away. we've got it scheduled to meet up with one of our instructors, tim, and nathan to go down together.



we get there and do some stretching and goofing off.


faith is the first to go...with her form placing 1st!


next up, my forms! now, remember "t's combo" from last week? well, i decided to go along the same lines - except a little opposite. i started out in basic 1, and finished in basic 2.

tim (who i didn't know him while he judged me!) later said i looked like i added a little of chun gee in with it! unfortunately, i had two united judges who knew the form and knew i had messed up (with tim being one of them) and couldn't give me a high score. but, i was very pleased to have taken home 2nd - even with a combo kata!
frankie (far left) & marlin (in middle) both said that my facial expression was fine, i didn't show i messed up, but i wouldn't do so great because of those two united judges. i'm just glad to come out with a story to tell! lol

faith's fight is next...she had to fight a tall girl for 1st place. she just turned 8, which put her in the 8-9 year old's. the score was 4-4 and the girl got a reverse punch in for the winning point. faith did get 2nd - and we were soooo proud of her!


at first, nathan wasn't going to enter the tournament at all. but as things got rolling, he decided he really wanted to fight. so, he went back and paid his entry fee to fight! then, come to find out, there was no one to fight...so he did an exhibition fight against a guy we called goliath! this guy was simply huge! btw, look close at this photo and you'll see nathan getting his headgear knocked off!


t did tung goon for her form. she got 1st in forms. she, like nathan, had no competition for fighting - which means she got 1st as well! go t!

my fight followed. i had 5 girls in my division - one was from my school and also was her first tournament. i had two fights to win for 1st... two tough fights, i might add!
thankfully, i had several united "cheerleaders" shouting what to do next and with their help, i was able that last fight off for 1st place!

during the course of this day, t and i have officially met "daniel" who's an amazing fighter, traveled to germany for his fighting and won a gold medal while there, and is simply awesome! so, of course, we're all for seeing his fight. well, as the fight starts, the other guy is in a retreating position and throws a back-swing-kick (basically, an extremely powerful kick), nailing daniel in the jaw/chin area. it doesn't knock him out, but puts him in a daze and lays him on the floor for about 5 minutes. after laying there, he gets up, "i'm ok...i want to fight!" about 10 of us were ready to jump in the middle saying he wasn't going to finish the fight!

for the next 8 hours he can't remember much - at one time he thought the year was 2004. he would ask one single question about a hundred times and couldn't remember the answer. he said, "i wish i could wake up at a tournament every saturday!" about 75 times - no exaggeration! got a call this morning saying he was much better! he's been told not to fight for a week by his instructor.


marlin does his form in the ring next to me! he does a great job and pulls off 1st place!

nathan then wants another exhibition fight with goliath...why, we're still not sure! lol t was so worried about him getting hit or something. he only loses 5-4 - he almost had him!


marlin (brown belt) & frankie (red belt) fight. frankie beat marlin, but we couldn't be too disappointed because they were both united! it was so hard to keep from yelling "go marlin" - instead, we were yelling "go united!"

tim's forms and fight are last - because he is a black belt. he gets 3rd in forms and because of a bad call, got knocked out of placing period. hopefully, he'll have better calls next time!

click on a photo to see more that i have downloaded onto the flickr site!