Tournament Results

You’ve all been on pins and needles waiting for the results, haven’t you? ;) I have to say that the tournament was a great experience for everyone. It wasn’t what I expected, but we’re all ready to do it again. Having been a swimmer my whole life, for some reason I expected the tournament to go like a swim meet, with everything going on in a linear, serial order. As it turned out, there were 9 rings and at one point three Teixeiras were in three of those rings AT THE SAME TIME. Because of the confusion and everything going on at once, while Steve and son #1 were watching son #2’s fight, they completely missed me and my fights. I was jumping up and down waving in my ring trying to get their attention, but alas, they weren’t even looking in my direction.

There are two types of things you can do at the tournament. You can show Kata, which is a series of fight moves, sort of like a routine or there is Kumite which is fighting (sparring). In my style of martial arts, Hapkido, we don’t do Kata, but Steve and the kids do. So Steve and son #1 entered the Kata divisions for their ages and belt ranks. Son #2 is still in the little kids’ classes where they don’t even learn a full Kata yet, so he didn’t feel comfortable entering Kata. Our intention was that son #2 was going to watch this time. However, Saturday morning he woke up and first insisted, then demanded that we let him enter the Kumite division. Son #2 has never sparred. The little kids do not spar until they are older. The only sparring son #2 has done was in our living room, with us, about 3 months ago. After much insistence and howling, we finally agreed to let him spar and I prayed it would go well for him. Son #1’s sensei had already taken me aside and told me that she did not think son #1 should spar because he is still not 100% from his broken hip. Two other senseis that know son #1 well also said we should not let him spar in this tournament. Son #1 was MOST unhappy about this, let me tell you. As it turned out, that was really good advice. The kids fighting in son #1’s division were much more experienced fighters and I have no doubt there’s a good chance he could have gotten hurt.

So anyway, Steve was first showing Kata. Here’s Steve showing his stuff:

He won a fourth place medal. YAY STEVE! I actually thought Steve’s Kata was going to score him even higher, because I thought his was cleaner and better than the other guys. He thinks he may have made a technical error when he bowed to the judges that lost him some points. That’s the thing about us being so new to all this. We don’t even know all the rules yet.

Son #1 was up next with his Kata. He did a beautiful job. Probably the best I’ve ever seen him do it. There were a ton of kids in his division so I was worried about him placing. However he earned himself a fourth place medal as well! YAY SON #1!!!

Halfway through his Kata, I noticed that Steve was beating people up over there in ring #7 (all the way on the other side of the gym) and son #2 was getting ready to fight in the ring next to son #1. I was running back and forth between the three rings. Let’s say it together: THREE RING NIGHTMARE!

I did manage to catch a few shots of Steve’s first fight before I had to run back. He kicked ass and took names (look at the look on his face):

We had planned on video taping the fights and posting them for your perusal, however we have a semi-new video camera and I could not figure out how to get it to work and I couldn’t ask Steve because he was…well, busy. Steve lost his next fight. However, everyone who saw the fight, said Steve won the match. I had to watch bits and pieces of his second match from across the gym. I didn’t get to see most of the fight. We’re thinking there was some kind of conspiracy going on. That’s my theory anyway. We think there might have been a second kicker on the grassy knoll. Anyway, Steve did not place in sparring.

With Steve just finishing up and son #2 starting his division *I* got called for my fight. GAH! This was totally nerve wracking. There was no way I was leaving son #2 to fight in his first-ever sparring match alone. I found a mom I knew to keep an eye on him while I ran to other side of the gym and checked in. I spent the next 20 minutes running back and forth between my ring and son #2’s ring. I was truly terrified for him. There were a ton of kids in his division (7 and 8 year olds) and son #2 just turned 7. Although he is huge for his age, there were some ginormous kids about to turn 9 that must have outweighed him by 50 pounds. And many of these kids looked like they had done a good amount of sparring. It was enough to make me weak in the knees. I prayed he wouldn’t get hurt. He’s a really tough kid, but yikes! In the end, he did fantastic. It still brings tears to my eyes. Son #2 ended up winning a sixth place medal. Gutsy kid, eh? He’s a natural born fighter like his father.

So then it was my turn. Do you know what my biggest fear going into this tournament was? That I would get disqualified for power (hitting too hard.) Since most of my experience is sparring with men, I tend to hit a lot harder than most other women. Also under pressure, I hit hard. Sigh. So I spent most of the several days beforehand worrying about getting disqualified. Hapkido sparring has different rules. I didn’t even know all the rules for this style of fighting. I listened in on the rules in son #2’s ring. However, I later learned that each ring’s judge can amend or alter the rules. My ring judge never went over the rules. Turns out in his ring, the head and face aren’t targets. Which is unfortunate, because I really love to go head hunting. So I actually ended up losing one of my fights because after repeatedly getting called for power, he started deducting points. I wasn’t being defiant. The woman I was sparring against had been given some very poor advice before the match. They told her to charge. So every time the judge yelled go, she charged at me like a bull, outweighing me by probably 100 pounds yelling like a lunatic. And every single time, I first put a foot in her belly, then a right and a left to her head. Every time. She just kept charging me. Charging is extremely dangerous. If you’re fighting someone with poor control, you could be very seriously injured. And the judge was getting angrier and angrier at me for hitting her in the head but she was shorter than me and bent over charging so I really had no other targets. It was extremely frustrating to lose this match. I mean losing a fight because you hit too hard? Sigh. After the match she said “We could fight 999 more times and I’d never beat you again. That was a total fluke.” Sigh. My other fight was over in less than 2 minutes. I beat her 3-0. She never even got to touch me. In fact when the judge said go and she put both fists turned towards her body and in front of her face, I actually felt sorry for her. I almost said “Honey, you don’t want to fight me like that. I’m gonna knock one of those fists into your own face.” But I didn’t. I just kicked her until I won. And so? I WON A HUGE THIRD PLACE TROPHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately there are no photos since the whole family missed my fights. I don’t even have a decent picture of me with the trophy because Steve gave son #1 the camera and well….he’s not a good photographer.

Steve SAYS he has video of me getting my trophy, but it turns out we do not have a cable we need to download it to the computer. When/if he gets the cable, I’ll post it. If you’re wondering about the black gi (uniform) in a sea of white uniforms, it’s because 90% of the people at this tournament were Karate people who wear white gis. We wear black in Hapkido. It’s not a good vs. evil thing. ;D

So there it is, folks, our first karate tournament.