Nationals Recap

Last week James and I went to Chicago for the USA Taekwondo National Championships. The two of us left Monday afternoon and drove straight through--a trip which ended up lasting about 26 hours, due to the awesome traffic in downtown Chicago. Of course, upon arriving we had time for a quick shower before jumping right back into the car to get me to a referee meeting that night at McCormick Place. Needless to say, we were pretty sick of being in the car by the time we finally got to bed that night!

Thursday, July 3rd was the first day of competition. Of our team of 8 (not counting coaches and parents), only Lexi competed that day, in board breaking. I spent the day refereeing, one of my most favorite pursuits. Although I did not get to spend much time in the center, I still learned a lot and met some great people.

On the Fourth of July, I got to be solely an athlete. We had a couple of competitors that day - Cade competed in board breaking and weapons, and Lexi in sparring. We had planned to go out to the Navy Pier that night for fireworks, but never had the chance. The Demonstration Team competition was that night, and despite a 5pm call time, we did not end up competing until about 10:30pm. We watched the tiny bit of fireworks we could see out the window of McCormick Place before setting up for our demo.

Demo Team was, in a word, disappointing. Don't get me wrong, we had a great performance, one of our best. Our energy was great, and though we had a few flubs, we felt great about what we accomplished. But we took last place. Fifth out of five.

We still don't know why. Watching the other teams, it frankly doesn't make sense. We should have placed, at least. We had strong technique, great energy, good team unity. The only thing we can figure is that perhaps we got docked for something. We learned later that we weren't supposed to use a chair in our demonstration--even though I had asked one of the Vice Chairs this question specifically earlier that day, and he said we were fine. It's possible we were deducted for it. We don't know for sure. Maybe the judges just really didn't like our demo. Who knows. It was a huge disappointment for all of us. Still, we feel proud of our performance. We all worked very hard to achieve what we did, and if I do say so myself, we looked great out there.

Friday and Saturday I was back as a referee. I have to say, it was a lot harder this year, with my team there. In the past, I have gone alone, and have been able to focus entirely upon refereeing. But this year, I kept checking my phone, to see who was fighting or how somebody scored. My five-minute breaks were usually spent dashing over to wherever my team was, to spend those few minutes with my husband and the group. The hardest part was when they all went out without me--to the aquarium, to the Navy Pier. Alas. But I enjoyed refereeing, as I always do, and it was still more enjoyable to have my team to go home to in the evenings.

All in all, our little team of 8 took home 3 medals: Brennon, my student, won the bronze medal in a large sparring division of 28 red belts, which made me very proud. Renee, one of our adult students, took home a bronze in board breaking (it was super fun to watch her with her baby bump--Renee is due in October!). And our friend Kristen won the silver medal in her weapons division, which was very exciting.

And after a loooong drive back to Utah (only 24 hours, but it seemed like much longer!), it feels so good to be home.