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: