myusername
Brown Belt
Hello everyone, I thought that I would share my first eperience of a TKD tournament. I attended the Welsh TAGB Championships in Cardiff this morning.
I woke up early and extremely nervous and had to force my self to eat breakfast and made the drive to Wales.
I got a bit lost as I went too far down the motorway and when I finally found my way and made it to the venue, it was a nightmare to park! I got quite hot under the collar but eventually managed to find somewhere to dump the car.
Initially I found the sheer numbers of people quite overwhelming and when I saw people warming up and looking very flexible, fast and skilled I wondered why on earth I had put myself in for this!!
I walked with my girlfriend to the spectators section and bade her farewell before meeting up with my fellow students. Engaging in some healthy banter soon calmed me down. I did a little warm up and stretches and practised my pattern Dan Gun.
My pattern event was first. I wasn't the first to be called so I had the chance to watch other competitors perform first. Noticed that they weren't 100% perfect either so I felt a little calmer.
My turn was up and I did OK. Being hypercritical of myself I knew that I had rushed through a little too quickly and it wasn't my best performance. I got a reasonable score 9.5 9.5 9.6 that I was happy with.
To my surprise I was asked to perform the pattern again as there were four other competitors who scored the same and they needed to find a "thrid place." I couldn't believe it!! I had a chance at a bronze medal!!!
I was a little too excited by this and made the smallest of trips! My heel stuck to the floor and I jolted forward! This cost me two points and it was all over! I was still pleased to have been in with a chance though!
Second was individual heavyweight sparring. This was point stop. I was drawn to fight against another member of my own school!! I put up a good fight scoring a few decent shots. I had two good kicks that connected but were not sighted by the refs. But it worked both ways as the same happened to my opponent with a hand technique. It was an even fight and ended in "sudden death" The first clean strike wins! Unfortunately it wasn't my day and my opponent got a decent punch to my head. That was it for me in that event.
My final event was the 3 man tag team sparring. Another point stop system where you have the option of tagging your mates in following every point scored. This was quite a brutal fight! My team mate got told off for excessive contact! We put up our best but our opponents were simply just better than us! They won 10-5.
All in all, I didn't win anything! However, I enjoyed the adrenaline and buzz of stepping up to the line! I learnt a great deal from my experience and I plan on returning at the South West and British Championships! I also feel attending tournaments is a great way of forcing me to "up my game" in my classes. Between now and the next tournament I will be training harder and really drilling my new pattern Do San in preparation!
If you don't attend tournaments because you don't think that you are good enough, I would really recommend swallowing the fear and stepping up! At the end of the day I wasn't good enough to win anything but I still got a lot from the experience and had a lot of fun.
I woke up early and extremely nervous and had to force my self to eat breakfast and made the drive to Wales.
I got a bit lost as I went too far down the motorway and when I finally found my way and made it to the venue, it was a nightmare to park! I got quite hot under the collar but eventually managed to find somewhere to dump the car.
Initially I found the sheer numbers of people quite overwhelming and when I saw people warming up and looking very flexible, fast and skilled I wondered why on earth I had put myself in for this!!
I walked with my girlfriend to the spectators section and bade her farewell before meeting up with my fellow students. Engaging in some healthy banter soon calmed me down. I did a little warm up and stretches and practised my pattern Dan Gun.
My pattern event was first. I wasn't the first to be called so I had the chance to watch other competitors perform first. Noticed that they weren't 100% perfect either so I felt a little calmer.
My turn was up and I did OK. Being hypercritical of myself I knew that I had rushed through a little too quickly and it wasn't my best performance. I got a reasonable score 9.5 9.5 9.6 that I was happy with.
To my surprise I was asked to perform the pattern again as there were four other competitors who scored the same and they needed to find a "thrid place." I couldn't believe it!! I had a chance at a bronze medal!!!
I was a little too excited by this and made the smallest of trips! My heel stuck to the floor and I jolted forward! This cost me two points and it was all over! I was still pleased to have been in with a chance though!
Second was individual heavyweight sparring. This was point stop. I was drawn to fight against another member of my own school!! I put up a good fight scoring a few decent shots. I had two good kicks that connected but were not sighted by the refs. But it worked both ways as the same happened to my opponent with a hand technique. It was an even fight and ended in "sudden death" The first clean strike wins! Unfortunately it wasn't my day and my opponent got a decent punch to my head. That was it for me in that event.
My final event was the 3 man tag team sparring. Another point stop system where you have the option of tagging your mates in following every point scored. This was quite a brutal fight! My team mate got told off for excessive contact! We put up our best but our opponents were simply just better than us! They won 10-5.
All in all, I didn't win anything! However, I enjoyed the adrenaline and buzz of stepping up to the line! I learnt a great deal from my experience and I plan on returning at the South West and British Championships! I also feel attending tournaments is a great way of forcing me to "up my game" in my classes. Between now and the next tournament I will be training harder and really drilling my new pattern Do San in preparation!
If you don't attend tournaments because you don't think that you are good enough, I would really recommend swallowing the fear and stepping up! At the end of the day I wasn't good enough to win anything but I still got a lot from the experience and had a lot of fun.
