Second place in my second tournament

So I competed again. The tournament ended up competing with another event 150 miles away so attendance was low. The hosting school had people there, but the ones walking around had no apparent interest in running the event, much less coaching their own kids. I remember haranguing some of them to get involved.

Well, fortunately for them our head coach stepped up to the plate. He got the tournament running, organized it on the fly, and took care of business. Our parents stepped up as well, and thanks to Team OMAA the tournament seemed to end well. Also, our team did well. Some thoughts about our team:

• I was happy to see Bijan vindicate himself in sparring against the kid who got an inappropriate score in forms.
• Taylor did wonderfully in his first sparring match.
• I really thought Leila broke my finger with her jump spin kicks during breaks. The crowd erupted in very loud cheers during her breaks.
  
• Neil was on fire during his breaks.
• It was good to see Kathyrn step up to compete!
• Scott Sawicki FTW!
  

So my effort in competition... the video had problems, and so until I get photos from some of the other folks I've got nothing to show.

I can say that I know I did better, and observations of me by knowing parties seem to back that up. I did make two significant mistakes, and got some advice that will help me in the future. However, the guy who beat me deserved to win, and was a gracious competitor. He did a higher ranked form and did it very well. I'll work harder for next time, and do his form better than he did to boot. So my observations about myself:

• I got my competition uniform hemmed.
  
• My deep stances were deep. I nailed all my stances.
• My first two front stances were solid, which is hard to pull off during that particular combination.
  
• Three of side kicks were good, but one was off.
• My hand techniques were crisp.
• I did not finish where I started (big in Korean and some Japanese forms)
  
• People said my combination sets were good.