Taekwondo Tournament

This past weekend, St. Patty's Day weekend, Scott and I traveled to Boise, Idaho for his annual Taekwondo tournament. This was the first year that I've gotten to go, so I was very excited! Plus I got to see what's in store for me if I get to compete next year. It was definitely a weekend full of stories...

Before I get started, here is a picture of Scott's team (for the Bozeman team demonstration):
Mike, Alison, Bonnie and Scott















We arrived on Friday afternoon and went straight to the studio for training and class. I got to finally meet Grandmaster Kim (the founder of the particular Taekwondo school that Scott is part of - there are many schools across the nation) and Master Knife (one of Grandmaster Kim's students). Master Werner is Scott's direct instructor from his Bozeman school and he was Master Knife's student. The chain will continue...and it was cool to meet the people who were founders of the school and made it happen. There were lots of students from many schools, mainly on the West Coast.

After the main class was over, part the Bozeman school stayed afterwards to practice their team demonstration. Each school chooses 4 people (usually black belts) to represent and perform a team demonstration at the tournament. Scott was chosen as one of the students from Bozeman, along with another guy and 2 girls. Since the rest of the team had a chance to work on the demo, Scott had to get up to speed and learn the routines. The demo consists of 3 parts: a choreographed set of forms that the team performs in synch, a skit, and a board-breaking demo. They worked hard on the demo and practiced for about 3 hours after class. For the skit, Scott and the other guy were truckers in a restaurant that were haggling the waitresses, the two girls. Once a butt got grabbed, the boys got their butt kicked. :) All choreographed, of course. However, during one of the practice runs, one of the girls circled with a round-house kick straight to Scott's nose and accidentally broke it! I wasn't there, thank gosh cuz I would have fainted (I don't do well with other people's blood), but I guess his nose was just gushing and the top was out of line with the rest. Well, he went into the bathroom, cracked it back in place like he'd done it a million times, and massaged the sides until the blood stopped. After that, they went on with finishing up the practice...now that's dedication! And that wasn't the only bump in the road. For the other part of the demo, board breaking, the team decided to do a side-kick break that included getting a running start and jumping over 7 people. The Bozeman junior team (black belts under 15) was doing the same break over 5 people, so they had to do more than the younger group. Scott's always been very successful at breaking and volunteered to do it. During the first pass at making sure he could clear 7 people, he landed successfully on the other side, but landed a lot harder on his heels than expected and bruised them up pretty bad. I think the bruised heels hurt much more than the broken nose cuz he spent the rest of the night and the next morning walking on his toes. So he was slightly worn out and broken down before the competition even began. We rested up that night and I made him take it easy. :)

The next day was a busy one. The Bozeman team headed to the studio at around 9 for one last practice. Everyone was amazed to see that Scott's nose was still straight, was barely swollen at all and there was no bruising...I still couldn't even tell he had gotten it broken. He was pretty lucky and must have done a good job putting it back in place. After their practice, where they perfected the team demo, we headed off to the tournament at the Boise High School gym. The tournament lasted all day from 11am to 8pm. There were lots of competitors and it was so cool to watch everyone from the sidelines. I took lots of pics and a few videos. Hopefully you will be able to play the videos, which are of the team demo. Scott's team did a great job and took 2nd place! I was a little worried that all of Scott's injuries and mishaps from the day before would take his toll, but I was proved wrong. He took lots of ibuprofen, ate well, and downed plenty of orange juice and energy drinks. Once the adrenaline got pumping, the pain pretty much disappeared while he was competed. There are three main events that individuals compete, in which they are broken up by rank, sex and weight class: sparring, forms and breaking. Scott did awesome and took home trophies for First place in sparring and Second place in forms. He also ranked fourth place out of 9 in the Grand Champion round. This is the last and final round where all the winners in sparring for their division compete for Grand Champion. This is very tough as first degree black belts (Scott's current rank) compete against 2nd, 3rd and 4th degrees. So he did much better than higher ranked students, all with injuries. (Luckily he didn't get hit in the face again...this is a non-contact sport, but accidents do happen.) So in all, he did GREAT and kicked ass!! I'm so proud of him and excited that I got to watch so many other talented students. Until next year, when Scott takes it all... :)

Some pics that I took of class and training in the studio on Friday, the night before the competition:


















Some pics I took at the tournament, the first one is Scott's sparring competition where he took First place:

























Also, here is a link to Google Video so you can view the three videos that I took of Scott's team demonstration, so you can see what they were all about:

Bozeman group demo - #1 Forms http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8306977457885528963
Bozeman group demo - #2 Skit http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1130064543202150247
Bozeman group demo - #3 Breaking http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2949338307153108295

Trip to Folsom

The first weekend in March was a beautiful one here in Northern Cali! It was sunny and 70 degrees...we finally got to say goodbye to rain, fog and clouds for a few days. I think it may be the start of summer already. Scott and I went to visit Robert and Liza for the weekend, as it was our turn to make the drive (about 2 hours), and it was the perfect weekend to spend outdoors. We put the bike rack on my little Civic and loaded our bikes. I recently bought a new mountain bike so I wouldn't have to rent one whenever we wanted to go riding. There was a great pre-season sale at the sports store so I got a killer deal. I was pumped to be able to finally use it. We spent the weekend outdoors as much as possible. We went folfing on Saturday at a really hard 12-hole course north of Folsom. For those of you not familiar with folf - it is short for frisbee golf. You throw a disc (a little heavier than a normal frisbee) across courses that are similar to golf (usually just not as far) and try to hit a goal post or basket at the end of the course. I am just awful at this sport, but it was still fun. I think I almost pulled a muscle in my arm which I was really peeved at because I started softball the next week and didn't want to be injured. But it turned out ok and was a lot of fun. Scott and Robert used to play frequently back home in Bozeman and Helena, so they were pros. Sunday we decided to get out again and took a really nice ride around Natoma Lake near where they live. It's a pretty easy ride, except for the fact that it's 17 miles, which took us about 2 hours. It really only took so long because Liza and I didn't want to kill ourselves and were riding at a slower pace...especially next to Scott who was like ADHD on his bike...he rides everyday so it was too easy for him. I thought 17 miles was long enough! I'll work up to longer trips this summer, but for a first time out, it was a good start.

I don't have any pics to post of this trip as we forgot our camera. :( It was beautiful out, but just so you have something to look at besides text, here is a map of Natoma Lake, courtesy of Google Earth. It's more of a long wide river to me, but it was a great riding trail.

Taekwondo

February 11, 2007...I officially started Taekwondo training with Scott as my instructor. He will eventually be opening his own Taekwondo school and I'm going to be his first official student until that happens. :) I'm not quite sure yet if I'll go all the way to getting my black belt, as my work schedule during busy season hardly allows any activities besides work, but I've always been interested in the art and discipline it takes to succeed. Plus it's a really great workout and strengthens muscles I didn't know I had...similar to yoga or pilates. Here's a picture of us in our gear at the apartment gym space after one of our recent sessions. I don't look very official because I just got the uniform (it's called a dobok). But we will be going to a national tournament soon and I will get some patches for my uniform then from Scott's Master from his school in Bozeman.

Just in case you're not familiar with this specific martial art, and here's a little more info that I found:

Taekwondo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Taekwondo (also spelled tae kwon do or taekwon-do) is a martial art originating in Korea. Having become one of the most widely practiced martial arts in the world, it is the national sport of Korea and one form of sparring, shihap kyeorugi, is an Olympic sporting event.
In Korean, derived from hanja, tae (跆) means to kick or strike with the foot"; kwon (拳) means "fist or to strike with the hand"; and do (道) means "way". Hence, taekwondo is loosely translated as "the way of the foot and hand". Taekwondo's popularity has resulted in the divergent evolution of the martial art. As with many other martial arts, taekwondo is a combination of combat technique, self-defense, sport, exercise, entertainment, and philosophy.

Taekwondo is famed for its employment of kicking techniques, which distinguishes it from martial arts such as karate or certain southern styles of kung fu. The rationale is that the leg is the longest and strongest weapon a martial artist has, and kicks thus have the greatest potential to execute powerful strikes without retaliation successfully.
Taekwondo as a sport and exercise is popular with people of both sexes and of many ages. Physically, taekwondo develops strength, speed, balance, flexibility, and stamina. An example of the union of mental and physical discipline is the breaking of boards, which requires both physical mastery of the technique and the concentration to focus one's strength.