My second demonstration

On Friday night, July 30, 2011, my taekwondo school performed a demonstration at the Scappoose community festival at Veterans Park in Scappoose, Oregon. It was the second time I have been involved in a taekwondo demonstration with my school. I performed a power break as part of the grand finale. I stood up with three other adult students to break through ten boards with a hand technique. My hand technique was chop. I only broke through seven boards on the first strike. I think part of the problem was that we were performing on grass. It was a little bit soft and squishy, so the boards moved away from our hands a little bit.

My eight-year-old daughter also performed in the demonstration. She also appeared in the grand finale power break. She also did an axe kick break earlier in the demonstration. She did a flying side kick and self defense routine.

The demonstration opened with a form in which ten students demonstrated blocks and punches. My favorite part was when the transitioned from a high block and a chop to a punch. It looked really cool, reminded me of a scene in Kung Fu Panda 2.

The demonstration was a big hit. Lots of applause. I think we signed up a lot of new students.

Taekwondo Day Camp: Day Five

Today, Friday, July 15, 2011 was our last day of day camp. Today we didn't start with a run. Today we started out writing letters to our parents. Most everybody wanted to write about how much fun they were having at camp, and how grateful they were that their parents had paid to send them to camp. My six-eyar-old son wanted to write me a list of gifts he would like to receive at the earliest appropriate moment. My eight-year-old daughter was much more sentimental. I wrote my father a get well soon card. I received an email yesterday from my mother explaining that he has an infection in his foot. He's been in the hospital for a couple of days, but they haven't made any progress on slowing the rate of infection.

After we wrote letters, we did our conditioning drills. We did the drill where we form up a line and we zig-zag between our team mates. It took a bit of practice to get the turn right. Then we did the same basic thing, but we sat down and took turns jumping over each others legs. I only recall winning one of these events. We mostly came in second.

After our conditioning drills, we played dodge ball. My team, the green team, paired up with the yellow team and the blue team paired up with the white team. It was great fun, but I don't think we found a winner. After playing a rather basic game of dodge ball, we played another version in which one team dodged and the other team threw. It was fun to see who might be the last man standing.

We did kicking drills and forms and nun chucks today. He taught us Nun Chuck Form Number Two. It's quite a bit more difficult than Nun Chuck Form Number One. There are fifteen single nun chuck forms. There are about ten double nun chuck forms.

At the very end of the day, Instructor Eric explained to us why he asked us to pick one person to stand up as the best team member and one person to stand up as the worst team member each day. Sacrifice. Since we had to pick a different person each day, some one had to sacrifice part of their ego for the good of the team. This was to teach us that none of us can do taekwondo without our team. Master Kim is an Olympic Gold Medalist, but he has also said many times, that he did not win his gold medal alone. He had his coach and his team mates and his parents all supporting him, and without them, he could not have won a gold medal.

Taekwondo Day Camp: Day Four

Day Four proceeded very much like Day Two and Day Three except that our runs were longer again by one minute each. On Day Four we played capture the flag again. My team did better than we had done on Day Two. On Day Two, I think we came in dead last for the capture the flag tournament, but on Day Four we came in second. In spite of this proud showing, we continued to lag behind in our total points. I believe it had to be because I am so very slow during the conditioning drills. I forgot my ice which was sorely missed. We practiced with our nun chucks again. I was mostly too tired to blog about the day afterward.

Taekwondo Day Camp: Day Three

Day Three proceeded very much like Day Two except that both of our runs were longer by one minute each. We played another soccer tournament on Day Three, and my team won again. In spite of this proud showing, we began to lag behind in the points. We didn't practice nun chucks today which was a little disappointing. We did have a great time. We were all a little sore and a little tired, but we were all very happy to be there. I also began to notice that not everyone was washing their uniform every day. I brought ice bottles to use on my feet during lunch, and this helped a lot.

Taekwondo Day Camp: Day Two

Today I can admit that I was tempted to complain that yesterday's workout was a bit light. I felt no such temptation today. We began with a five minute run. Every time Deacon (our fastest runner) completed ten laps, we switched directions. After stretching, we ran conditioning drills. Some of them were relay races for points. We had trouble with one of the drills and we had to repeat it many times before we got it right.

Then, we played capture the flag. I would not have thought it possible in so small a space, but we had a lot of fun. My team lost our first game but we won our second, placing us third in the tournament and earning us six points.

After all at running around, we took a little break and did some reading. Of course, the tendon in my foot tightened up something awful while I was sitting, and I limped rather heavily as we started our next thing: kicking drills, but they loosened up after a bit. Kicking is my favorite. Instructor Eric had us do a tricking kicking drill where we did a roundhouse kick followed by another roundhouse kick with the same leg. We had to make a funny switch between kicks in order for them to both be back leg round house kicks.

After kicking drills, it was time for lunch. We take a whole hour break for lunch even though it only takes about 20 minutes to eat our lunch, so that our food has time to settle. With nothing to do, a few students got in trouble (again), but most everyone else got out their nun chucks to practice their form. I was surprised how many students had practiced. Almost everyone had the form memorized.

After lunch, we started with three minutes of running. This time we switched directions every time our slowest runner completed ten laps. Instead of blocking and punching drills we practiced forms. We did basic forms numbers 1, 2, & 3. It has been a very long time since I had done those forms. I was surprised at how quickly they came back to me.

Finally it was time to practice with our nunchucks. I was really surprised that everybody was so much faster than me. I'm slowest at almost everything except maybe punching, but I practiced a lot with my nun chucks last night. Thought I would be amazing, but I'm still the slowest. Oh well, a good reason to keep practicing.

Taekwondo Day Camp: Day One

On Monday, July 11, 2011, I joined my eight-yar-old daughter, Samantha, and my six-year-old son, Jason, for a five-hour day of taekwondo day camp. We arrived at the dojang at 9:00 am. We warmed up with some jumping jacks and some pushups. Colin lead the stretching, and they we divided up into four teams. Instructor Eric called out Monique, Claire, myself, and my eight-year-old daughter Samantha as team captains. There were four students on each team. Jason (age 6), Jacob (age 9) and John (age 10) were on my team. We received a green sheet of poster board, so we were known as the green team. We also received four colored sheets o construction paper. We each drew a picture on our sheet of construction paper and pasted it to our poster board. Then, Instructor Eric mounted the poster to the wall and that spot in the room became our team base. The poster board would also be used to record our team points for the week.

Then we faced off in a soccer tournaments. Two players from each team faced off for one minute. Then we rotated in other players. My green team won our first game against Claire's white team. Jacob and John played well together, and so did Jason and I. I also tried pairing Jason with Jacob and then with John, but neither of those pairings worked out very well. Then, Samantha's blue team lost to Monique's yellow team, so we played the yellow team - and we won again! Then Samantha's blue team won a match against Claire's white team. Instructor Eric said we are going to continue with tournament play liek that each day, and at the end we will be awarded points for our team. I'm not sure why we were not awarded the points each day, but I'm sure it will make sense before the end.

After soccer, it was time to do some reading. Each students was asked to bring a book. Two students forgot, so they were set to work reading the student manual. That did not really hold their attention very well. My son Jason had some trouble in that he has not yet learned to read, so he wanted me to read his book to him. I thought that would be hard to do without bothering everybody else, but it didn't matter. He wasn't listening any way, so I was able to read to him VERY quietly.

After reading, it was time for kicking drills. We paired off and held targets for each other. I was paired with Claire. We practiced front kick, face-high front kick, round house kick, face-high round house kick, and axe kick.

Finally - lunch. I think I might better eat a bigger breakfast tomorrow, so I don't get so hungry before breakfast. The lunch break was one hour. It didn't take most of the kids an hour to eat their lunch, but it was important that we didn't get right back into it so that our food could digest a bit, and we didn't end up vomiting all over the dojang (yuk). So Instructor Eric had us lie down for nap time on the mats. It soon became painfully evident that I was in a room with mostly 10-year-old boys. Everyone thought it was incredibly hilarious to make snoring, burping and farting noises. :rolleyes: Instructor Eric was kept pretty busy taking care of the trouble makers.

After lunch it was time to work on our blocks and punches. Everyone was able to earn lots of points for their team during this activity. John was the star of my team. He performed the entire punching sequence quickly, powerfully and without any errors.

And finally, the very last 30-mnutes of camp, we received our brand new foam nunchucks! We lined up and spaced ourselves out so we wouldn't hit each other, and Instructor Eric started teaching us the first nunchuck form: spin-down, spin-up, figure eight, over-the-head, one-hip, the other hip, and KIHAP! It was surprisingly difficult, but tons of fun. I can't wait for tomorrow!

My First National Tournament

On Saturday, July 2, 2011, I competed in the 2011 ATU National Taekwondo Championship. The ATU (American Taekwondo United) is an association of mostly Korean masters of taekwondo in the United States. Among other things, they sponsor a national tournament every year. This year it was in Los Angeles. Last year it was in Texas, and next year it is scheduled to be held in Atlanta.

I qualified for the tournament by placing second in forms and first in sparring at the state championship earlier this year. My friend Dominic also qualified, and he traveled to Los Angeles to compete, too. We both competed in forms and sparring. The tournament also offered team demonstration competition, but no breaking competition.

The tournament started on time at 9:00 am with forms and sparring competitions for competitors age 5-11. I did not know many competitors in this age group, but TEAM OREGON did bring a few. I think Jessica lost her match 16-19, but it didn't look like she was upset or injured. Madeline took first in forms and second in sparring. That's quite excellent. Austin did not win his match, but his competitor's lack of sportsmanship is more noteworthy. Whenever he scored a point, he shouted, held up his hand in victory, and looked to the referees as if to make sure they saw it. In my opinion, this sort of thing violates the spirit of humility that is supposed to be a trademark of the martial artist, and I think he should have received a warning and a point reduction if he was not able to behave better. Martial arts is not worth doing if it's not going to be done well. If you need to be a braggart, you should maybe study western boxing instead of Asian martial arts.

The opening ceremony was supposed to begin at 12:00 pm, but the first group took a very long time, so the opening ceremony began at 3:00 pm. It was a nice ceremony. The masters and grand masters were briefly introduced. The president of ATU and the president of California ATU made very brief speeches. Then there was a parade of flags. First the US flag and then the flags of the fifty states. Then the referees filed in followed by two competitors representing all of us. Someone sang the national anthem. They did not play the Korean national anthem. Nor did I see the Korean flag displayed. The referees took their oath and the competitors took their oath.

After the opening ceremony, the team demonstrations began. The team I liked best took third place. I liked them best because even their "dance" moves were actually taekwondo techniques. For example, they used low kicks to simulate a shuffle. They also used synchronized hand techniques to cover the transitions between breaking techniques. Many other teams create two distinct segments. I liked this better. Another team had rigged their boards to explode when they were broken. They attached a small firework to each board. They used the type of fire work that is designed to explode when you pull two strings in opposite directions. They attached the end of each string to opposite ends of the board so that when the board broke the stings were pulled apart and there was a spark, a pop and a puff of smoke. It was very exciting. The winning team was very deserving. They also had a very exciting demonstration. The most notable moment was when the men all removed their long sleeved white shirts to reveal black tank tops. Some of them were impressively muscled. They finished the last bit of their routing in this costume change.

After the demonstration teams, it was finally time for everybody else. The program called for the 12-17 year olds to do forms and sparring first and then for the adults to go, but it was getting late and everyone was tired and wanted to go home, so they ran the two groups simultaneously. This was very complicated for Erica who was entered in both. Apparently if you are 17 and a half, then you can compete against 17 year olds and also against the 18 year olds , so she was running back and forth like crazy. I haven't heard yet how she did.

My friend Dominic is 13. He's a black belt. He competed in forms against three other 13 year old black belts, and scored in second place receiving a silver medal. Then he competed in sparring. I didn't see his match, so I'm not sure how many competitors he faced, but I know that he won his first match and lost his second. He received another silver medal!

Forms competition is divided up into weight classes the same as sparring. Doesn't make sense to me, but there it is. It makes sense to divide competitors by age (at least the children) and experience (belt), but what's weight got to do with it? At any rate, there weren't any other competitor's in my weight class: heavyweight, age 41-50, red belt. (I actually wear a brown belt, but at this tournament a brown belt is considered low red, so my division was red belt.) So they put together an exhibition match. We all win gold for showing up, but we still get to compete against each other. My exhibition included a 20-something blue belt and a 30-something red belt. We all received first place, but we had a moment afterwards to compare scores and my score was actually highest. I scored 25 out of 30 points (8.2 + 8.5 + 8.4). Not great scores. I don't think. I would have been much happier with some 9s, but I didn't get nearly so nervous this time as I did the last two times. This is a point of great personal improvement for me and I'm very excited about it. I hope to do much better at the next school tournament.

Just like forms, there were no other competitors in my weight class for sparring, so they put together another exhibition match. I fought a 20 year old red belt named Alicia who was significantly shorter and lighter than myself. Alicia is from California. She beat me 8-5 primarily because most of my kicks were landing quietly. I was kicking her hard, but they weren't making any sound. This was very frustrating. Two other problems I had were (1) that I tend to stop after I score, giving my opponent a beautiful opportunity to score, and (2) I failed to attack my opponent when I really needed the points. Alicia had to go on to fight a 50-something black belt. She was a lot slower than Alicia, but she liked to use back kick, so she gained a lot of points at first, but Alicia was able to compensate. I think she even got in a head shot. She won 15-8 (or something like that.). Age matters in this game, but we all received gold medals in spite of our scores :-)

Between Alicia's match with me and her match with the black belt, there was a match between two adult men. They were black belts and they were big. I would estimate their age between 25-35. They looked terrifying. At one point in the match, blue, who was six inches taller than red, backed red up against the time keepers table, and kicked him in the nose. I don't know why the referees allowed it. I guess he was technically still inside the ring. He had one foot in the ring. The timekeepers table was probable too close to the ring. Red was mad! They called a timeout and EMTs attended to red's bloody nose, and they were able to finish the match, but red finished the match angry. He was not able to close the point gap, and he lost the match, but he was able to injure his opponent, who limped out of the ring. I can forgive red his poor sportsmanship. Pain has made me behave badly. I understand. But red's supporters booed blue when he won, and that is not cool. We can do better than that.