A Day at a Tournament

This past Saturday, the boy and I spent the day at a martial arts tournament we both entered. It was the boy’s first real tournament, and my second. I participated in another one about a month ago and enjoyed it, as I suspected I would. Whether the boy was destined to enjoy his experience was, well, completely results oriented. I don’t know if that’s the norm for approaching-nine-year-olds, but it’s definitely the way the boy is wired.

There was a bit of confusion for him leading up to the event. For those of you not in the know, which I presume is a majority, there are 3 different competition formats at a MA tournament: breaking, forms and sparring. For adults, there is also a weapon’s form. I trust I don’t need to explain why there isn’t such a category for the kids.

The boy competed in all three formats for his age and belt level. The confusion arose because he had to decide what form he would perform and the type of break he wanted to perform. For both, he started out with one thing in mind and had to change it in the final week prior to competition. For the form, it was a quirk of the tournament format and for the breaking we were told the break he wanted to do wasn’t appropriate for his belt level.

The tournament itself was quite the affair. It was located in a hotel conference room with 10 different rings setup so multiple levels and ages could compete simultaneously. I can’t even begin to count how many different groups there were over the course of the day, so suffice it to say there were over 400 competitors at the event ages ranging from 6 to 50+ and belt levels ranging from beginner to grandmaster (typically 6th Dan and up). Just for a more specific taste, for men’s black belts alone there were at least 10 different competition levels.

The tournament didn’t get off to the greatest start, if you’re a kid that is. It started with a long memorial for the tournament’s founder who had passed away within the past year. Thankfully, I was separated from the boy since we had to arrange ourselves by belt level and the boy “outranks” me. At least where MA is concerned.

Despite the slow start, the boy’s division, “Red Belts 6-8 years old” was one of the first ones to compete.

Just let me state that, as a parent, an MA tournament is an experience in patience. Not just because of the waiting, but because there are tons of parents all scrambling to get into position to watch their kids compete. Unfortunately for me, the boy was in a center ring, so there was no “good” viewing area, except standing on a chair and watching from 50 feet away over everyone’s head. My attempts at video taping were thwarted on a number of occasions by interlopers wandering in front of my line of site. They seemed particularly well-timed for when the boy was up.

Despite the personal frustrations, the boy left with a 3rd in breaking and a 2nd in sparring. Based on the scores, I think the judges dinged him a bit for his form because they didn’t feel it level-appropriate. That’s not his fault, nor really his instructors. It was more a quirk of the tournament’s timing alongside his instruction schedule. If it were another month out, he’d have been fine on that score.

Even with the nice results, the boy still managed to be disappointed. His 2nd place in sparring particularly irked him. Getting 2nd meant he lost the 1st place match and he didn’t like that. He gets a pained expression on his face that’s unmistakable- all flushed and on the verge of tears, a sobbing-like type of breath pattern. As much as I’d like to help him work it out, it was probably for the best that he was on his own and forced to deal on his own. He maintained what was left of his composure for the awards ceremony, and just like that, he was done for the day.

He spent the remainder of the morning sitting in a little nook he fashioned out of all the equipment bags, reading his Harry Potter book, his medals dangling from his neck. A lot of his MA mates wondered what he was reading, and he got a lot of congratulations for his medals. Not a few parents were impressed as well, especially when they found out he wasn’t reading for a book report.

As for me, I won forms in my division, didn’t place in sparring and didn’t compete in breaking. I don’t know if the boy was watching the sparring, but I hope he did so he could see that it doesn’t have to be all doom-and-gloom when losing. (That comes later…)

The rest of the day, we spent watching the other competitors, especially the black belt levels. They were really something, particularly the sparring.

Towards the end of our day, the boy came up to me with a bag of peanut M&M’s he’d found in our lunch bag. The Wife’s doing- a little surprise for him. He wanted to share the bag with me. Who was I to refuse?

So we finished the bag, and by that time it was pretty late and time to get going. He chose Cracker Barrel as our spot to stop for dinner. He had rainbow trout for dinner and a fudge brownie. He enjoyed the fish, but not the brownie. I enjoyed the brownie.

On our ride home, he was mainly concerned with when he could watch the 2nd Harry Potter movie. He’d finished the 2nd book and started reading the 3rd one. He was disappointed he couldn’t watch it when we got home, but it was going to be too late for movies by then.

When we did arrive home, the Wife and the lass had one more surprise- “gourmet” cupcakes. They grabbed a couple of pistachio flavored cupcakes, one of his favorite. As well as mine, funny coincidence that.

The boy has already made mention of his “next” tournament. So it’s safe to assume that, even though he didn’t win, he’d enjoyed the day well enough.

That made two of us.