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I admit that I struggled a little when Annaleigh wanted to follow in her younger brother's footsteps and start TaeKwonDo. She is a girl, afterall. A real girly-girl. She takes ballet. She likes pink and purple. She beads. She reads novels about unicorns and princesses. What business does she have kicking people in the head and punching them in the gut? Yet we saw a lot of value in the sport. It promotes a self-control and discipline that is rare in youth today. We love the academy we are a part of and have a lot of respect for the instructors. Plus as Annaleigh nears her teen years, it is not a bad idea to know some self-defense moves as she gradually becomes more independent. It has actually been a real treat over the past year watching her develop her skills. It wasn't a big surprise that she excelled in her forms. Afterall, she's taken seven years of ballet. If she couldn't kick high and stay in rhythm then I'd want seven years of tuition refunded to me from her dance instructors. Sparring, however, was a toss-up. Would my delicate flower of a daughter be able to beat people up? The answer is a resounding yes! This past weekend in Mobile, AL she whooped up in her ring full of boys and earned the gold medal for sparring, a feat she has yet to accomplish in a tournament. I didn't record her first sparring match because she was up against a large, stocky boy and, frankly I didn't think she would win. She almost didn't, as it came down to 4-4, but she was able to get in the last kick and won the round. Here's a clip of her second round, where she came from behind for the win.... (Just an FYI, she's red for this round and I think you can see the score cards in the background.)
And then here's her final round, against a tall, gentlemanly boy from Texas who had sparred better in his preceding rounds than he did against Annaleigh. Personally, I think it must be hard on boys who are probably raised not to hit girls to suddenly try to knock their blocks off. Poor guy... (She was white for this round.)
The kid you hear on the video that was cheering incessantly was Riley, a little friend of Harrison's, who was at our ring to cheer for Annaleigh, and cheer she certainly did. Here's Annaleigh sporting her gold medal...
I'll have more clips and results over the next day or so. I'm not purposefully trying to build this up. I actually goofed taping Harrison's medal-winning form, so I'm waiting to see if anyone else who went has the footage. If not, I'm just going to tape him doing it in our backyard or something. Speaking of Harrison, it must have been a girl-weekend all around, because he was beaten by a cute little girl in his ring earlier that day. Oh well....it happens. I think I'll end this entry with simply saying, "You go girl!" |
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