Tallman Family Blog: December 2007

On Saturday December 1, Austen, Peter and Cora participated in a TKD juniors sparring and forms tournament hosted by our gym and held at Vermont Technical College here in Randolph. We had upwards of 75 competitors mainly from Vermont, but with representatives from all over New England. We all had a great time and the kids were rewarded for all of their hard work by taking home two medals each. It really was a lot of fun and the kids have more and more fun at the tournaments with each one that they compete in. Here is a sampling of the fun. You can see the whole album and all of my other albums by clicking on the picassa link on the right side of this page or by cutting and pasting the following link: http://picasaweb.google.com/tallmanlaw

Ella watches the matches on Mariah's shoulders. It won't be long before Ella joins our gym!

Cora gets ready for her forms competition. She just learned Tae Guk Il Jang, so she's a little nervous how she'll do. No need to worry. She did great, pulling off a victory in her first match and taking home a silver medal!

Cora doesn't spar very much in our do-jang because right now there isn't anyone in our class who matches up well with her as far as size and experience. In last year's tournament, she didn't participate in sparring, so this was her first competitive sparring events. No need to worry, even though the girls she fought against looked tough and were very fast, Cora did fantastic, getting better with each round. She can't wait 'til the next tournament, and ended up with a bronze medal! Congratulations, Cora.

Here she is fighting Emily.

Emily was a tough competitor, coming in hard with two-handed puches and pressing constantly. Cora earned points by slide stepping and counter-kicking.

Austen got a gold medal for sparring!

Austen's testing poomse was Tae Guk Oh Jang. One of Austen's practice points was getting his side kick higher. It looks great here!

Austen got a silver medal in poomse!

Austen pulled out a close match 3-2 against Jacob D.

I'd like to think that Austen got some valuable coaching advice from me and Peter to help him pull out his match. But all the credit goes to Austen. He had two great matches!

Austen lost a very close match to fellow Randolph student, Connor. Austen pulled within one point with about 15 seconds to go, but was penalized by the ref for pushing, so he lost a point, and then ran out of time. He and Connor both ended up with gold medals in their sparring group, as did Jacob D.

Peter getting congratulations and advice from Master Peter Chase.

Peter getting some Mommy advice before his match

Peter did Tae guk Oh jang (#5) 3 times. Here he is going against Jacob.

Its a friendly competition. Here are the medal winners in Peter's poomse group.

Peter had a great second match, going against Jacob R. Peter got behind 10-5 after 2 periods, but never let up and stormed back to win a barnburner of a match 17-16 with a point in the closing seconds of the third round to seal the victory. Well done, Peter!