Saturday was such a full, amazing day. It is really hard to even put it into words.
First of all, I want to thank Sifu Csillag for his master organizing skills - really he is the glue that held the whole event together. Thank you for letting me help out with the organizing and scorekeeping. I learned a lot in the process. There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to have a day like that come off successfully - more than I believe most people realize.
Now for the preparation for the event... Same as always... I knew it was coming. We had plenty of advance warning, yet it seemed to sneak up all the same. This is the place where I insert the whole wish I would have put in more time before the event comments. I will spare you that internal dialog.
The day of the event was fantastic! Scorekeeping for the itty bitty guys was so much fun. Seriously, how do you even begin to judge such cuteness. Then to add to it all some of them were in their Halloween costumes. You could see life lessons being learned. You could see growth just in the short time they were there. Quite an inspiring bunch of mini ninjas. From Miss Tomie going from tears to gold and Mr. Thompson almost winning a medal in the pool noodle fight after having never had the courage to join a class.
Next up the scorekeeping for the intermediate black dragons. I have to say, I have a extremely large bias towards one of the competitors. It was interesting watching the forms division unfold. My girl went out and rocked out her form. She made a small mistake at the beginning but totally recovered. She really put her best foot forward. Being the scorekeeper, I was able to watch exactly where she stood amongst the other kids but had to keep it quiet. So hard to play stoneface when you are one proud mama. She looked surprised when she won the gold so I must have done that part of my job well. Her musical form went well. She missed the one whoosh in the music and beat herself up about that but she put herself out there and performed great. She ended off the day competing with me in the adult team forms. She learned a new form, competed against other adults and made her mama so proud.
Waylon also had a very successful day. I know he would have loved to have walked away with more hardware but instead he was filled with inspiration to push hard for next year and some great life lessons. He was reminded that even if you do a really hard form, your stances and technique need to be bang on. He really put himself out there by trying a Sai form that he learned at the forms seminar. He walked away so happy that he did not drop them or impale himself or any of the judges. The fight choreography he did was done as well as I had ever seen them do it. It was long and jam-packed with moves from the curriculum, especially the grappling. It was such a fun and creative way for the boys to really work on their kung fu. The next day he spent a bunch of time up in his room just before bedtime. When I went in to say good night he showed me a list of goals. Some of them big goals for the next year in kung fu. It put a fire in his belly.
As for my events, I was happy with the performances that I put out. Tai He went fairly well. I had one moment where I lost where I was but recovered. I'm hoping the only one who may have noticed was Sifu Beckett. Tai Chi Broadsword went well. I have to admit, I really wanted to perform it in the other ring. The idea of doing a tai chi form for Sifu Brinker was pretty intimidating... I decided before I entered the ring that I was going to do the fastest tai chi form that I could pull off without sacrificing the technique I had been working on. The past month I had been working on really slowing it down and cleaning up the footwork and trying to eliminate any bobbing up and down. I decided to speed it up so that I would not put the panel to sleep. Finally, was the team form. Like I mentioned above, I was so focused on being proud of my girl that I hardly remember doing my part of the form. A very good day!
The rest of the day was also fantastic. I love watching the black belts perform their forms. So much to be learned just by watching how they move. I find having the visual is very helpful for me. Then the obstacle course... I nearly lost my pants in the tunnel. Life lesson - tie them up next year. Watching everyone else do the obstacle course was a hoot! Who would have thought it would get so competitive with people diving, broken bones and sprained hands. You guys are very hardcore!!!
Such a great day! Spending a day building lessons and memories with my kung fu family. Hard to get much better than that!
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