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.
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