Saturday, April 21, 2012

First Taekwondo Tournament

we went to our first taekwondo tournament this weekend. roman was really excited and we were too. we just wanted to see what it was all about and see if this is something we want to continue to do. this tournament was held in milledgeville, ga and so it was only a 3.5 hour drive. we left at 7pm on friday night and got to our really sweet hotel room at about 10:30pm. a late night, and an early morning to get there at 8am, but our kids slept really well and we were actually early enough for momma to stop and get a starbucks...bonus!  when we got there, most of the participants were on the floor.  we just hung out in the stands and watched.  what was really neat was that Grand Master Soon Ho Lee was there.  he is the head of the ATA, which is the American Taekwondo Association.  that's all of the schools in the US.  crazy.  and roman got his autograph on his headband.  
then it was on to the staging area to get ready for the tiny tigers oortion of the tournament
roman was listening intently since he had never been to a tournament before.  and it was loud.  there were 6 different "rings" just in the area that we were in.
roman needed a little help with his form, but he did well once he saw the judge do it.  she had to do this for a few of the other tiny tigers too.
roman got 30 seconds to do anything he wanted with his weapon.  he had been practicing with poppa all week, but i think he forgot a lot of it when he was put on the spot.  i'm sure he'll do better the next time, but we were really proud of him for getting out there and doing it.  he was the only one in his group to do the weapons portion.

and on to sparring.  sometimes i feel like it takes longer to put all the gear on than it does to actually spar!


roman is the one with the black face mask on.  as you can see, he has no fear.  

two medals!

somebody's pretty proud of himself, huh?  we sure are!

roman asked me to take this picture of him with his new ninja sword.  how many ninjas have you seen that do the whole "nanny nanny boo boo" routine? 

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