Musa Challenge
Now it's time to spam your friend page with another tournament post (at least for my HRD friends).
Since I'm not an instructor, I didn't have to get there until 1pm. I got there at about 12:30ish (having to park in the boondocks), but the adult competition didn't start until 2pm.
I did about how I expected to do. I felt guilty about competing with people with 3 months to a year (tops) of experience. It is my current division, but as Instructor Marlenee said a couple of times, I need to get a higher rank before I compete again (and work on my flexibility, which has always been a fault of mine).
I am, however, pretty proud on how I did in grappling though. I certainly wasn't ready to go in the submission grappling group, so positioning it was. Considering how about 1.5 - 2 weeks ago I started to figure out how to not be a highly ineffectual flopping fish (now it's getting to amphibian stage as my sister so humorously commented this morning), I'm happy that I got a couple of points (read: two points).
I stayed through the entire tournament, and I'm very happy I did. The weapon matches were awesome and inspirational. If I wasn't already going to start Mugi Daeryun this week, I'd decide to start up. I was very impressed with everybody, especially with the competitors who didn't tower over everybody. Consider that douglascole swept his divisions, cutefuzzysatan medaled (and the only girl in the division mind you), and Inst Marlenee took home several top placements, it shows that size doesn't matter. Only skill.
Afterwords, us "locals" (i.e. - those of us not driving to Madison, WI at 11:30pm) put the Dojang back together for about an hour. Cleaning up and putting equipment back in their proper positions didn't seem to take that long, but we were all pretty tired by that point.
Then came pizza, and some fun conversation. We train hard, so it's nice to unwind for awhile. After about an hour or so, we all went home, a good call since it was about 2 am. Needless to say, as soon as I hit my pillow, I crashed. It's going to be hard getting up for work tomorrow, but it's well worth it.
Yesterday got me thinking about a few things. In all honesty, the best friends I have ever had have come from martial arts. Granted I have had a lot of good friends from band, church and a small number from school. However, my martial arts family understand those other parts of my life, where others don't really "get" why I practice martial arts. Yesterday was a great affirmation that I'm (finally) in the right town again, that I'm home.
So I want to say thank you to my Hwa Rang Do family for yesterday. You guys are awesome, and inspiring, and I can't say how grateful I am to count you as friends. See you in class.
Since I'm not an instructor, I didn't have to get there until 1pm. I got there at about 12:30ish (having to park in the boondocks), but the adult competition didn't start until 2pm.
I did about how I expected to do. I felt guilty about competing with people with 3 months to a year (tops) of experience. It is my current division, but as Instructor Marlenee said a couple of times, I need to get a higher rank before I compete again (and work on my flexibility, which has always been a fault of mine).
I am, however, pretty proud on how I did in grappling though. I certainly wasn't ready to go in the submission grappling group, so positioning it was. Considering how about 1.5 - 2 weeks ago I started to figure out how to not be a highly ineffectual flopping fish (now it's getting to amphibian stage as my sister so humorously commented this morning), I'm happy that I got a couple of points (read: two points).
I stayed through the entire tournament, and I'm very happy I did. The weapon matches were awesome and inspirational. If I wasn't already going to start Mugi Daeryun this week, I'd decide to start up. I was very impressed with everybody, especially with the competitors who didn't tower over everybody. Consider that douglascole swept his divisions, cutefuzzysatan medaled (and the only girl in the division mind you), and Inst Marlenee took home several top placements, it shows that size doesn't matter. Only skill.
Afterwords, us "locals" (i.e. - those of us not driving to Madison, WI at 11:30pm) put the Dojang back together for about an hour. Cleaning up and putting equipment back in their proper positions didn't seem to take that long, but we were all pretty tired by that point.
Then came pizza, and some fun conversation. We train hard, so it's nice to unwind for awhile. After about an hour or so, we all went home, a good call since it was about 2 am. Needless to say, as soon as I hit my pillow, I crashed. It's going to be hard getting up for work tomorrow, but it's well worth it.
Yesterday got me thinking about a few things. In all honesty, the best friends I have ever had have come from martial arts. Granted I have had a lot of good friends from band, church and a small number from school. However, my martial arts family understand those other parts of my life, where others don't really "get" why I practice martial arts. Yesterday was a great affirmation that I'm (finally) in the right town again, that I'm home.
So I want to say thank you to my Hwa Rang Do family for yesterday. You guys are awesome, and inspiring, and I can't say how grateful I am to count you as friends. See you in class.