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(Jeff)
The kids are continuing to excel in their martial arts and competed in a tournament in downtown San Jose today. This is in preparation for a national competition next March at Disneyland. http://www.tournament.info/index.htm
Yesterday I recorded their practice session. It's about 12 minutes long but very entertaining. You can fast forward if it gets too long...
At the Dojo
We spent most of Saturday in San Jose where the kids competed in the Silicon Valley Tae-Kwon-Do Championship, a 27 year old event, and did very well. This venue was mostly pure Tae-Kwon-Do, while the kids have been learning a blend of styles called Ka-Wushu-Kwan (Karate, Wushu, Tae-Kwon-Do) that brings grace and showmanship to the mechanics of the sport, so their style was a little flashier (and louder) than most. And unlike other competitions we've seen, at this one they had 2 and sometimes 3 people doing their forms or patterns at the same time on the same mat. That put the kids at a disadvantage as they've been trained to use the whole mat and had to curtail their routines to avoid collisions. Fortunately, the judges decided to go single with the weapons competition, or there would have been some decapitations… But otherwise the kids were great, much more dramatic than their competition. You can hear their yells all over the venue, and when Emily and Shelby were both performing on different mats, they echoed each other’s yells (you'll hear it in the next video about 1 minute into the first scene with Emily). Then Kyle and Emily had to do a tie breaker performance together. And in the last match of our day Kyle blew away the competition with his Bowstaff routine, again being much flashier than the competition. In the end, Shelby won a bronze medal for her open hand free form pattern, Emily won a bronze medal for her Katana routine, and Kyle won Bronze in open hand and Gold with the Bowstaff. We’re all pretty psyched as we were not really expecting to win anything. The video is below. Kyle's Gold medal drill is at the end, be sure not to miss it!
Silicon Valley Tae Kwon Do Championship
The medalists
