The Great Lakes Open Taekwondo Championships
Today our lives revolved around the 7th Annual Great Lakes Open Taekwondo Championship. It was held at Penn State Behrend and the 10-year old was competing in 3 events as well as involved in the “Tiger” demonstration team. It was always going to be a full day, and so it proved.
The demonstration team practiced late yesterday and were there early this morning for last minute practice. I’m told they were very good (I was on taxi duty with the 5-year old) but I can’t help feeling that far too much effort went into the demonstration routine and not enough into preparing the students for the competition itself.
In the end our son finished 2nd in the standard forms competition, for which he won a trophy. He finished 2nd in the Grand Champion Poomsae competition, but that’s a winner takes all style event so he came away with nothing except the tiredness to show for it. Finally, he won a bronze medal in the sparring. All in all a satisfactory end to his first experience of competitive events in the US. While the basics seemed to be similar to other competitions he has experienced, the sparring areas were much smaller than used in the UK - I’ll have to check which (if either) is the regulation size.
The early evening was spent updating the taekwondo section of his website, so now he can send emails to his friends at his Isle of Man club and refer them to the details!
Tags: great lakes open, taekwondo