Joseph was wonderful at his TaeKwonDo tournament today. He participated in three events, forms, weapons and sparring.
Forms
There were 4 competitors. Joseph, unfortunately, forgot one single move in the 3rd-to-last segment of the form and ended up not being able to continue. We looked back at the video and found that if he’d remembered the double outer forearm block, he’d have nailed it, but alas he didn’t, and stopped just about 10 moves short (in a 46 move form). His overall score was a 9.6 (I believe and very generous I might add). He did not place in this event.
Weapons (Staff)
There were 5 competitors here, two staff and 3 nun-chucks (sp?). Joseph was flawless! He made up this routine (including about 20 moves) and has practiced and practiced it over the last several weeks. It paid off! His scores were 9.8, 9.8 and 9.8! He took first place in this one without question!
Sparring
Here there were 5 competitors as well. What’s interesting is that because there was a state champ in the mix and because there was an odd number of competitors, 3 got bys and 2 began the sparring competition. By random draw, Joseph did not get a by. So, he sparred against an opponent and won by 1 point. Then, he waited while another two sparred. He then sparred against another opponent and won by a landslide. 🙂 He then had a 30 second rest and sparred the last opponent (the winner of the above). And, here he lost 5-0. 🙁 But, it was fun to watch and he really did do a great job. This put him in 2nd place. For a first-time, true-competition, by a non-aggressive “sparrer” he did great!
Sara, Daniel and Doug, along with me, Ron and the girls were there to root and cheer him on. In addition there were folks from his TaeKwonDo school to do the same for him and for their own kids. It was quite a tournament and Joseph is thoroughly pleased with his two huge trophies!
The 1st place weapons trophy is the bigger one. The other is the 2nd place trophy for sparring.
Go Joseph!!