However this month was a tournament. Tournaments are times for the kids to compete in kata and weapons against the other cities. At the tournament I did assist in some more teaching. My mom took several pictures for me. These pictures are the ones I chose to use for my 1st Lesson.
What's going on here is Anthony (the guy sitting down who I mentioned in September) is speaking out the nunchuck form while I am preforming it for the kids to follow, for extra practice before the tournament. I was going intentionally slow to make following easier. In each of these I have my head turned so I can look at the kids and see who is doing it correctly and who isn't. Most of them were doing well. The younger ones who I can only assume are too young to get it were the ones messing up.
My mom left before the tournament started. During the tournament I was a judge for the competitions . I basically shadowed Anthony while he judged. The kids were so young I did the forms while they followed me. The same thing I was doing in these pictures, just one kid at a time, and weapons and kata.
Much of the month of a tournament is dedicated to weapons and kata. While I didn't do much along those lines with the young kids, I did help out a lot with the older kids. (And when I say kids I mean people slightly younger, equal to, and older than me.)
Another part of tournaments is how they are times for people to receive their black belts. I have a little friend with the older students who was testing for it. I spent a lot of time training him in his weapons for the test. He passed the test too! I didn't get a picture, but I will say he is the younger brother of one of us seniors.
I have several stories to tell from the tournament, but only one has anything to do with the kids. Before each competition the judge does a run-through of the expectations and what will happen. However the group we received consisted of a 5 year old girl, 5 year old boy, and two 6 year old boys. The 5's were asking questions the whole time like "When do we get the trophies?" "How old are you?" "Can I get the big trophy?" Anthony did a good job saying composed during this, but we lost a lot of time for the competition.
After the first round, the pair of 5's came in second. This means they got the smaller medal. No matter how hard Anthony and I tried to change it, the girl could only understand. "I'm not good. I didn't get the big medal. I did bad. I came in last." Anthony said it was his first time judging and someone came close to tears. What a way to be broken into judging. I tried explaining next time it may be better, but I don't think I did a good job doing so.
I know the interview was this month, but I haven't gotten a picture of my mentor yet. I will get one in November.
No comments:
Post a Comment