Tournament 2013

So the dojo here where Chunk takes karate decided to hold a tournament.  I was asked to help a lot with it, and Chunk was super excited about it.  There 3 different schools, ours was the biggest attended but there were still about 50 students there.  It was so smoothly run it was kind of awesome.  I heard many veteran competitors comment on how well it was run and what a great environment it was.  This was our first so I have nothing to compare it too, but I thought it was awesomely done.

Chunk was so excited about it.  But he was also so nervous that he didn't think he would do well so I had Bailey come and help him and review with him and he felt much better.

If you look closely in the center, you can see a bunch of flowers, holding those is his the lady in charge, she really is a great teacher and Master.  She truly cares about the kids and how they do in life more than karate.  It's really great to see how she has helped people. 

What happens is each group was divided up by age and division.  They preform different things in front of a panel of judges and scores are given and right there 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are given.  Depending on the size of your group (his generally had about 7 or 8 different kids) it would last about 10 minutes.  But I tell you what- those are the longest 10 minutes ever.  Here Chunk is doing his kata.  He got 2nd place!!!  We were beyond ecstatic about this.  Seeing as he has never competed and this was a first time to do it publicly.  Very awesome!!

Waiting to see how he did... 

Walking back with his medal!!!  Look at that happy face!! 

Next is chanbara.  Pretty close to sword fighting but the 'swords' are foam right now.  Here he ended up getting 3rd place.  The two boys he lost to were taller and older than him, I think arm reach had some play in there but I might be a bit biased.  He really did an amazing job here too.  I think next year he will do even better considering the amount of sword play he and his brother do! 

Here he is getting his medal.  The kid on the left (who looks shorter I know) took second I believe. 

Here I was actually able to get a picture of him on the podium!  That is one of the kids that kept beating him.  He is a few levels above Chunk, but the fact that he did so well against someone above him was great! 

Last was sparring.  I had JellyBean taking pictures of that and well....

she missed it, but we have some great pictures of those around us!  

But in sparring he got 2nd again!  How can we not be proud as punch with him?!  

Look how happy he was! 

We are so proud of all his hard work and all the practice that he did. 

I just hoped he was able to see that with hard work and practice great things can happen!  Also I hope it is a motivator to try hard for future things!

Way to go Chunk!!!

We love you!!