Superwife - Camo belt - D

My wife of 8 years and mother of our three kids. She started TKD after the birth of Odie, our third child.

Princess - Camo Belt - D

Our seven-year-old daughter. She was originally supposed to be a spectator to Cowboy, but jumped in and has proven to have an incredible talent for the martial arts.

Cowboy - Camo Belt - D

Our six-year-old son. He is small for his age, so starting him in TKD is what got us into this mess. He is very close to our Chief Instructor, and his spirit is twice as big as he is.

Odie

Our youngest son, born in April of 2006. By the time he is old enough to start, we should all be Black Belts.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Complete Collapse

I'm tired. I'm too busy. I worked out at TKD tonight. I have a meeting. It's cold and I rode my motorcycle today.

Excuses. All of which, if properly translated, equate to "I'm unmotivated and lazy."

These excuses led to, in the last ten days, a complete and utter collapse of my UBWT challenge. I have not lifted a finger--and in the most critical time of the last six months.

As it is now, for me to even come close to finishing on time I need to do something like 160 pushups and situps a day, and run 3.3 miles per day for the next two weeks. Ain't gonna happen.
And then, to top it all off, there was Mesa. Not only did I lose it in the last three weeks of the challenge--I lost it in the week prior to Nationals "dress rehearsal" in Mesa, AZ this past weekend. Even with that--I felt pretty comfortable going in.

What a disaster.

All the standard stuff aside of dragging 15 bags, three kids a wife and a mother-in-law to the tournament. Cowboy got his Tiny Tiger game on and got his trophy. Princess even pulled hers off, winning 3rd in forms and 1st in her first sparring tournament, despite getting punched full-force in the nose.

Then SW and I went.

To begin with, Alan and I were pretty nervous because we were the only adults with a half-belt in the convention center, and our ring went from us at Camo-R's to 1B-R. We felt a little better when watching their forms, though. For the ranks they were, they were atrocious. One guy finished his backwards, one guy forgot it halfway through. By the time they got to us, we were both feeling pretty good about our chances at placing.

Alan went, did his as good as I've seen him, and then I went, doing as good as I ever have. He got his scores--9.6, 9.6, 9.7. I got the same exact thing. We didn't even come in the top five. We were pretty pissed. I felt like we were given lower scores from either being lower ranked or doing a lower form. On top of that, we looked even more stupid because everyone there is in leadership club (every adult we saw all day, incidentally) and wearing black gear with a gold stripe on their belt. We look like real big tiny tigers.

Sparring didn't go much better. We've done one punching drill since since we began. I focused primarily on kicks. All the guy (a 1B-R) had to do was wait for me to get into arm's reach and he scored every time, with his back to the judges. Our punches tied, but since he had two judges on his side, every point he got was 2-1 in his favor. On top of that, the contact was a LOT heavier than I was led to believe, pretty much full-force kicks and punches. SW's ring wasn't any better. She was eliminated early, too, although her fight was much better than mine. The girl she was fighting against fired off two illegal kicks to the back and never got a warning. The girl then went against another girl in our class, and on the third kick to the back finally got DQ'd, opening it up for my classmate to take first--the only trophy any of us got. Compared to the last tournament, when every single person in my class won something, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

All in all, an extremely frustrating and demoralizing experience.

I don't mind losing at all. I do mind getting treated unfairly, which is what I firmly believe happened this weekend.

I'm debating whether or not to enter Nationals or just go and watch Princess take first again, even though no points are awarded to her since we don't do leadership club. If what I experienced this weekend is any indication of what to expect over the next two years I think my competing days are done for now.

CHALLENGE STATUS

PUSHUP: -1348
SITUPS: -1348
MILES: -27.1


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Comments on "Complete Collapse"

 

Blogger Unknown said ... (3:55 PM) : 

I'm really sorry to hear that your experience in Mesa was so bad. :-( I was thinking of you over the weekend, and wondering how it went. I'm going to send you a note offline to give you some feedback that I think will be helpful to put things in perspective. OK? Sorry it went so badly.

 

Blogger hardheaded is my middle name said ... (9:45 AM) : 

Sorry that your tournament experience was frustrating. When we do poorly, we try to chalk it up as a bad day at the office. My husband is in the mens 40-49 2/3 degree ring, and a top ten competitor. When he started doing his form, he got right in front of the judges and put so much power in his ax kick that he fell on his behind. He got up, went to the next move, and still tied for 3rd.

ATA judges do the best we can, but it is still subjective. In my opinion, not enough judges take the time to read the rules and know exactly what they are supposed to be looking at. One of my students places very well in forms, but personally I don't like his style. Technically he is very proficient, so I would have to give him high marks... It is difficult for judges to move beyond what they like.

As far as how your ring was split - that makes no sense. I've had wacky splits in your region, but nothing like that. Again, chalk it up to experience, and enjoy Vegas. It's a great tournament, rings split by height, all your rank - it is a wonderful experience.

Sparring and contact is a difference animal. We spar hard at my school, because that's what we like. Some judges don't like any contact, some like to see it. The challenge is that there is no uniform standard. All I can say is practice, learn good control. That way, you can modify to what the judge is looking for. One of my teens went to Arkansas this year, and because there was one kid that was sort of "special", they were not allowed to make any contact. He had to work harder for that win than any other, that's for sure.

By the way, who is your instructor? And were you the ones with the belts that were half yellow, half camo? Don't worry about yellow or black stripe - to most people, that means nothing. As long as you are wearing a belt - that's what matters!

 

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