This was a very large karate tournament, even the guy who started Yoshida's Teriyaki was part of it! It was held at Mount Hood Community College in Gresham, OR, about an hour from here. It was in their gym and wow, what an event! Here is what it looked like:
The official's tableI think Zack was a bit nervous, but mostly from not knowing what to expect. He is used to his belt testing, but this was very different. After some warming up, the tournament began.
Pre-tourney video game warm-up. ;)
Zack and his buddy, Isaac, doing some stretches
The team from our dojo, Hillsboro Shotokan Karate
Drew got to sit on Sensei Guido's shoulders to watch the black belts compete!First up was the kata competition. They grouped kids by age, experience and gender, so Zack was with boys his age. A kata is a kind of series of moves that are very specific to that kata and you usually perform certain ones based on the color of belt. Zack does Shotokan karate and ours was the only Shotokan dojo at the tournament. This turned out to not be such a good thing, as the judges seemed to prefer the styles of the other kids to ours. Needless to say, Zack performed his kata well and was very proud of himself.
In the staging area, waiting to be called
Then came the sparring competition. Sparring is pretty much fighting using karate. Our dojo doesn't really do sparring, but Sensei Guido had the kids practice 5 or 6 times before the tournament. That turned out to also be kind of a bad thing, as we soon found that the rest of the dojos there spar a LOT. These little 6 and 7 year old boys were vicious!!! Two boys went at a time and they got points based on their punching and kicking, kind of complicated. At the end of that match a winner was determined and it kept going on like that until they had an overall winner. Zack did awesome during his first match and actually won! His second match he was paired with a big, tough, very well-practiced boy. Zack kind of got beat up, to the point of tears. It was very hard to watch. :( But he kept on going until he was done. He did have a third match against another boy from our dojo and even though Zack lost that one, he did really well.
Lil' Bro, desperately wanting in on the action
Getting pumped up!
Zack and Sensei Guido
Grandma Marie and Papa David came to cheer Zack on!
Medals make everything better!
We are so very proud of Zack and how he persevered and did his absolute best, even when getting beat up by a big scary kid! He is awesome.
In the staging area, waiting to be called
Then came the sparring competition. Sparring is pretty much fighting using karate. Our dojo doesn't really do sparring, but Sensei Guido had the kids practice 5 or 6 times before the tournament. That turned out to also be kind of a bad thing, as we soon found that the rest of the dojos there spar a LOT. These little 6 and 7 year old boys were vicious!!! Two boys went at a time and they got points based on their punching and kicking, kind of complicated. At the end of that match a winner was determined and it kept going on like that until they had an overall winner. Zack did awesome during his first match and actually won! His second match he was paired with a big, tough, very well-practiced boy. Zack kind of got beat up, to the point of tears. It was very hard to watch. :( But he kept on going until he was done. He did have a third match against another boy from our dojo and even though Zack lost that one, he did really well.
Lil' Bro, desperately wanting in on the action
Getting pumped up!
Zack and Sensei Guido
Grandma Marie and Papa David came to cheer Zack on!
Medals make everything better!
....And so does ICE CREAM!!
We are so very proud of Zack and how he persevered and did his absolute best, even when getting beat up by a big scary kid! He is awesome.
1 comment:
We are so very proud of Zack! Way to go buddy!
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