A nice surprise visit with several black belts

Strolling one after the other, several black belts came in to our Tuesday class.  These are mostly 2nd degree black belts who have been students of mine in the past and with whom I have a good and friendly connection. 

There were 12 students that day and the difference was that most of the students were black belts.  I wish the home schooled children who usually come to our class were there that day to benefit from the experience of this friendly bunch but you never know who will show up for class until they ...show up! 

We had a great practice time!

Award ceremony

The school has an award ceremony on the Thursday that follows the week of testing.

We held our own little ceremony for our students who could not make it at that Thursday event.

Ronan Hatfield getting his next rank

Congratulations, Ronan!!!

Then comes his brother Reese who did great as well!

Reese Hatfield moved up two ranks!  He is very serious about TaeKwonDo.

Then comes Lester Daniel, a very dedicated student who moved up two ranks as well!

Some, like Dylan Belcher, got their new rank earlier.  Dylan moved up two ranks! He is trying hard.

We had twelve students today, including five black belts.

A special thank to Stephen Martin, first degree black belt, who took the pictures.

We also appreciate the help of Wanda Cheney, second degree, Anna Riley, Noah and Addison Cheney, all first degrees, who have helped today.  They've helped, not just with our small award ceremony, but also with forms.

We are proud of our students!

March 18, 2017 tournament. Clips from Andre's free sparring.

I had two fights also known as "free sparring".
The first three clips are about the first fight.  The second set of video clips are about the second fight.

These video clips have not been edited.  The person recording made very short videos.  I still appreciated him recording these clips.
My opponents scored points, as you can see, and I scored points too.

As you can see, both fighters against me were good, very good.  Confident, charging, taller.  I also had an advantage.  I've been practicing longer.

I had a quick back kick to the head at the end of this clip for two points.
These two gentlemen fought very differently.  So I had to adjust my style of fighting.  For the color pads on our chests, I was red in the first fight, blue in the second.  The color is only for identification when calling points.

We all scored points.  At the end, I scored more points.  The whole fights were not recorded, but I remember scoring more points to the head, which is two points.

As you may have guessed, I won both fights.  I did not "dominate" the fights.  These men were good.  On the other hands, I felt I had more tools in by bag of free sparring tricks that I didn't use, but I could use if the fighters got ahead of me in points.
Participating was a great reward! I will remember these men.  They will remember me.  I'm looking forward to seeing them next year.  We appreciated each other.  Competition in tournaments should not be mean spirited and it was not, we all are TaeKwonDo practitioners who wanted to free spare in a safe and sportsmanship way.   We did.
I've enjoyed it! Driving back home, I kept saying to myself "I could have done this, I could have done that!" and maybe everyone who participated that day was saying the same thing.

Group picture with trophies

Several of the students who went to the March 18th tournament brought their hard earned trophies for a group picture.

It's nice to see that some of the participants who got two trophies shared with others.

Watch out for the saber warriors!

Hannah, Joshua and Micah!
Looks like Hannah is in trouble!

The saber warriors!

Preparing for our upcoming tournament on the 18th.

Not visible in this picture, but multiple sparring duels were going on at the time.  Some students were practicing back and forth kick training with Ms. Cheney.

Strange! Some of our yellow belts were just so excited about free sparring today, even though they knew they will be doing "kick exchange" at tournament.  Have at it!

Stephen Martin in the background has been a great help today.  While he and I were overseeing free sparring, Wanda Cheney has been training students on back and forth kicks training.

These two are great fighters!

We needed to pause from the organized but a bit fast pace activities to give additional instructions.  Yes, you counter an incoming round house with a quick back kick! The next move, not recorded, shows how that back kick counter goes to the head.  Yes, I can still do that! And Stephen Martin dodged it well too! I told him what was coming.

...and our class is growing!

We have 16 students attending today.  Our goal is to reach a regular 20 students attendance for the day class before year end. I'm confident we'll reach our goal.

A special thank to Ms. Lisa Whitfield who took the pictures today.  I'm happy to announce that Lisa will be joining our classes!!!

Warm up exercises by Ms. Wanda Cheney

It's always nice to start class with a good warm up, often conducted by Ms. Wanda Cheney.