October 24, 2004
Head is clear, so now...
...here are the details of what went down yesterday. First thing though, I was far too busy to get any action shots. I was either working my ring as ring coordinator and scorekeeper or I was competing. I wanted to get shots of the boys but I was a board holder in my ring for the breaking competition and then things went quicker for the forms. By the time we got into sparring, some other rings opened up and we were able to spread things out a bit.
The pictures? Well the 1st one just to give you an idea of how big the area was. Here's the kicker, there are 8 competition rings behind me as I took this shot! That banner is quite large as you can see. The 2 gentleman centered below the banner are Mark Gronotte (left) and Russell Brown (right). Both are Black Belts and both competed in my ring. Mark won Grand Champion for forms and was featured in a news spot on one of our local broadcasts performing a very high split kick break...awesome!
Picture number 2 is a shot of the trophy tables. The gentleman in the middle is Troy Kyle. That's Conor walking in front. Trevor and I helped set up the tables on Friday...one of the many things we did. Friday was wild and Trevor worked real hard, I'm quite proud of him...he never fussed about doing anything, he just got right on it. The only thing he ever said was that he was hungry...no problem as pizza was served to all the helpers...that made him very happy!
So...how did we do? The same as last year!! Conor received A Tiger award for his forms and Dragons for breaking and sparring. Trevor received Dragons for all 3 competitions and I received an Eagle for breaking and Dragons for forms and sparring. Conor once again was somewhat unhappy with the results but he needs to realize that Eagles aren't going to be handed out just for showing up. He needs to go to more classes and work on his skills. Regardless, I'm proud of both boys for how they conducted themselves. They represented HMA 2 very well and next year? Well...I say watch out! Conor and I will temporary Black Belts so we'll be competing against the best.
The after tournament party was an interesting event. We pretty much took over the Ichiban Samaurai restaurant. When you get close to 100 martial artists together for some fun and games, things can get a bit wild.