Tae Kwon Do Tournament

[Jade]

Event: Kicks for Kids 'Hwa-Rang' (youth warrior) Challenge ....http://taekwondo.on.ca/tournament/kicksforkids.pdf
Where: Cathedral High School in Hamilton, Ontario.
When: Saturday February 24th, 2007

Only one athlete competed. Lee Wyscaver (29). He was to fight in the male white belt 17-29 year old division. There weren't any opponents for him to fight, so we fought to put him with the 30-35 year olds. There were six competitors in this division. After getting leaving at 4:30 in the morning, arriving at 8am for registration and sitting all day in a hot arena Lee got to fight 12 hours later at 8pm. His first fight was well matched. His opponent was heavier then anyone he is used to training with back home. He had to fight smarter & hit harder. He obliverated his first opponent. Using more advanced techniques for a white belt, such as puch kicks and idans(double jumping roundhouse). He fought real smart and won the match easy.

His next match he was standing there waiting for what seemed like ten minutes, the head referee was discussing his matches with the coaches of his opponents. They were all shaking their heads, no one wanted to fight him. Finally an opponent said he would. This opponent fought for his life! Lee is 6'6 he has a huge reach and needs to stay back from his opponents to strike them. This second opponent stayed in tight and didn't back off. Lee blocked most of his shots, but due to the lack of corner judges and poor vision from their postioning (2 judges instead of four) a lot of his opponents shots were counted. After finallly getting the distance he required, Lee performed a roundhouse to his opponents head, knocking his helmet slightly to the side. The ref stopped the match and checked him, and cleared the opponent. They continued the match, and although Lee fought just as hard, he lost this round to take third. After the match his opponent congratulated him on the fight stating " I've never been rocked so hard in my life!" referring to the roundhouse to the head. Everyone shook hands knowing they all just survived a battle from worthy opponents!

The coaches were so excited about the fights that the took down Lees name, our club name and my name (coach) and wanted to be sure we were going to the next tournament in London.

Matches were set up for 2 minute rounds. Once you lose a fight your done. There is a referee in the center of the ring, and two corner judges with score cards to keep tallies on points. Body shots are worth 1 point, headshots are worth 2 points. Normally there are four corner judges to observe every angle and they use an electronic scoring system, points must be awarded by all four judges within 1 second or they do not count. We weren't fortunate enough to get a ring with this set up.

Let me know if you have any questions or want to try taekwondo for free!