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Ah, I love the month of October...

Ok, not just because that is the month I was born but for many things.  The nice weather, the last karate tournament for the year, usually a Shiloh Martial Arts Association Tournament, etc... but this October is one of my best.

August, September, and October 2008 I competed, bringing a friend with me all three times.  The August was his first, for me that's another story.  We had a blast.  My previous blogs and Taekwondo Accomplishments have many of those listed.  But this month was like, wow!

Prior to doing my weapon form, I was told by another school's instructor that one of his students wanted to speak to me.  She is a 15 year old purple belt in another style of taekwondo.  She told me she had to pick a hero to write on for English.  She couldn't decide on one, so she wrote about her favorite two, Eli Manning, and me.  Me?  Really??  Well, I was taken by surprise.  I hope that she can email me the paper.  I'd love to read it.

I was placed in a men's division for weapons because no women were competing in weapons.  I earned 2nd place.  I was beat by Ryan, a guy who takes his bo staff and does fancy twirls, throws and catches, tumbles, and such.  His approach isn't traditional, but XMA style.  I did a traditional style form with the bo.  I hope by next season to get another weapon up to my bo level of performance, to add variety to the ring.  I also earned 1st in forms, combining two of our purple belt forms back to back, Ship Soo & Jin Soo, and called it Ship Jin Soo.

I then found out that I had won the women's grand champion overall trophy, which is 5 foot tall.  I had to disassmeble it to make it fit in my car, with my friend in the car with me.  I kept joking that I was going to attach him to the hood, and keep the trophy in the car.  Ha.  As I was loading my car I was told by people going outside, that they were calling me up to the judges stand, I won the Women's Black belt Grand Champion jacket as well.  Wow!

Not too shabby for having issues with my body this year... from the right hip issue, to now the most recent, my right foot feeling numb upon walking on it, near the ball of the foot, to turning 30 soon.

I then went to visit my parents, and grandmother and they were so proud of me, mom having to take all her photos, and they asked when I was testing for my next level of black, and they all are going to make it this year.  Dad's requesting off from work Monday for it, and it'll be the first time my grandmother will see me do karate, my mom saw only a purple belt test, but was sick when I earned 1st, and dad, well he's seen it.  I hope my nephew can watch too, as now my parents want me to teach him.  He's 6.

I love the month of October. :)

To God be the glory!

Whew, this is a busy month!

September 6th I had two students earn green belt and one student to earn blue belt.  Then after their test I held another test for two students going to brown belt.  Brown belt in our system is about half way, or just over, but the level they can become instructors if they wish to teach both the physical and spiritual side of our system.  Both of these students said they wanted to be instructors.  They have earned instructor status.

September 13th I competed in a SMAC tournament in Madison, MS along with a friend.  My friend is a green belt in another system, so he has to compete with that rank, though he is only an orange belt with us.  He earned 1st in forms, and 2nd in weapons.  His weapon divison was very difficult, because he was the lowest ranking student, and the one with the least amount of practice.  The other guys have trained for a long time, but due to their syles of martial arts they have not earned black in their divison, though they have the tme in.  One of his compeitiors told him he's been doing that same form for over 4 years now.  Geesh.  My friend has only competed one other time, and that was last month. 

In my division there were women so I had to compete with the black belt men.  I earned 2nd in forms where .3 points seperated first and second.  In the weapons divison a fancy bo xma style won 1st.  However, the same guy who beat me by .3 points in forms beat me by just .2 points in weapons.  He did a semi xma style, nothing fancy with kicks or so, but just had two numchukus.  The rest of us in our divison did a traditional form. 

September also has two birthdays in my family, my sister turns 29, and her son turns 6. 

Sepember 23rd my students in Marion are performing in a home school association demo.  I'm getting anxious and excited!  It's our first.

Finally the 9th, 11th, 16th, and 18th I have / had to teach for my instructor while he's out of state.  His school is a lot larger than my school, and it's been fun, but work too.

Come on October... oh wait, hold on, that's a busy month too.  Gah.

Let's see:  October 4th promotions, October 11th, last 2008 SMAC touranment, and my last as a 1st dan black belt, Ocotber 18th the 3rd annual Shiloh tournament, and the 31st I turn 30.  Noooooo!

It's been a busy year, and this summer has flown by.

July 23rd I lost my uncle who was 43 years old. 

I hoped to register for school, but lost track with his passing.

I have not got enough time to get into the doctor and get my menegitius shot, and have my medical records turned into the school, so I can't go this fall.  That is ok.

I have two of my students who will be earning their brown belt September 6th.  They are 13 months out of earning 1st dan black belt.  At brown they will be instructors.  I am already working on 4th dan black belt to 5th dan requirments, with these two.  Yea! 

My school in Marion is also performing a demonstration on September 23rd, 2008.  I hope to work on that in the next few weeks.

I also hope still test for 2nd dan this fall.  I am going to push my instructor into going over my last forms with me, and to quit giving me extra things.  I want time to make it look decent for the test so it will not reflect that I just learned it a week or two ago.

I'll try to get my video from August 16th, 2008 edited, as well as some of the other things, so you guys can view, if interested.

Ok, that's all for now.

Vicki

Well last year I competed four times.  I only did the first of 3 in Spring which was in March 2007.  I then competed in the 3 in fall; August, September, and October of 2007.  I ended up gaining a lot of experience in the ring, competing in just weapons and forms.

After competing I ended up fracturing my two little right toes in a board breaking testimony / demonstration as well as in January of 2008 I began treatment with the chriorpactor and finally was able to get back to training with my shoes off. 

I went in March of 2008 to pick up my state championship jacket from fall of 2007.

I had met a guy at work, who is a green stripe in Shotokan from four yeasr ago, and has just promoted to orange belt with our system.  He and I competed on August 16th, 2008 with me.  He had to compete with his highest rank, and placed 1st in forms against all green belt men.  He placed 2nd in weapons being beat by a purple belt, but the ranges of belts were from yellow to purple.  He ended up earning a 2nd place there.

I also competed in just two events, forms and weapons.

I met a new young lady in this competition, a Tang Soo Do stylist, black belt, testing for her 2nd dan in January 2009.  I performed one of our red belt forms called Jah Un.  I earned 1st place in forms.  I also went against both men and women in weapons because they didn't divide the men from the women, I placed fourth.  I had checked the scores, 5th place 19.0, 4th place 19.4, 3rd place 19.5 (with dropping his weapon), 2nd place 19.8 and 1st place 20.1 so even though we went against the men, we actually did well. 

I will next time speak up, because as long as I am respectful, and they have more than one lady competing, they will divide the division.  I felt speaking up would have been rude.  But even with that, neither one of us knew that it was going to be the same, even black belt judges from nearby rings said we were both robbed, and tried to contest it, but it was too late.

Well Mike will have to wait in the mail for a 1st place plaque with his name on it, because they ran out of trophies.  Ha ha, to him, because the trophies were a pretty blue; and blue is my favorite color.

All prayers for those that knew we were competing were greatly appreciated.

We hope to make September 13th for the next competition.

Well it's that time of year again where tournaments pick up in my area.

 I will be competing in my first touranmeng for the 2008 season on August 16th, 2008.  I had to limit competing in the Spring series, due to the fact I was seeing a Chriopractor for past hip issues, and found out that my right leg is 3/4 '' shorter than my left leg and was issued a wedge to wear in my right shoe. I had to train in shoes for a while when I had fractured my two little toes back in November of 2007.  I since then have been weaning off wearing the shoes in class, but had to adjust to being barefoot again.  I am now ready.

I hope to compete in Weapons and Forms, but am still unsure about Sparring, because of the contact, and still seeking monthly chiropractor adjustments.

Does anyone know of any sparring gear that will protect the back, especially near the shoulders?  The traditional tkd style w/ the red / blue circle don't work.  I would like to find something that would fit better under a uniform, rather than over, because I do not want something that points to what is a target.

Anyways...

Also September 23rd, 2008 my school is performing their first demo for a local home school association.  I hope this will draw new members in. 

I am still working on taking videos from my martial arts and get them onto the computer, and edited, to make a few videos.  I am unsure if I have video editing software, as I have a laptop, with Windows Vista as the Operating System.

October 18th will mark the 3rd annual Shiloh Martial Arts Association touranment.   This will be competition 3 for some of them, and 2 or 1 for the others.  This is the first we had both spring and fall, rather than just a fall.  I do not compete in these, as we do not have any black belts in our school yet, besides my instructor and me, and occasionally another one, but the rest that come to judge are past black belts and no longer active in training.  It's fun to see how my students do against my instructor's school, all in a fun and fellowship.

Okies, that's it for now.

Vicki

Well I have been working very hard at my martial arts training, more so in the past two years than ever before.  I began training with my main instructor just over 2 years ago, and just over a year began to teach as well.  In the 8 year gap that my instructor had stopped teaching, I began to try other styles and instructors and had a lot of things come in my way to stop me from training.  As those years went by, I began to lose what I knew, as far as advanced forms, and requirements.  I have been working with my instructor before class, and after class, when his weapons / sparring class is low.  I have got 1 more form to relearn that is under black belt, and then I need to relearn my brown and red belt self defense sets.  I then have to learn several black belt requirements, but I'll be able to pick up on those quickly, or so says my instructor.

So after all this work, and being a 1st degree for almost 10 years he has finally told me that I should be ready to test for my 2nd degree in just a few more months, probably the end of October or early November.

That would be great, because it'll be a nice thing to have by my 30th birthday and my 10 years since I earned my 1st.

My instructor also said that once I earn my 2nd it gets easier, because I am alerady doing things that are advanced degrees of black belt, and that include xx amount of hours of solo instruction, which I have over 200 hours already, and also because I will be having my first two black belts sometime in the fall of 2009.  I have to have from 4th to 5th have at least 2 students that began with me from white to black belt.  They are still with me after a year.  Yea :)

I am just so glad that he has reopened and that I can train again.  Not only that, but my dreams of teaching have become a reality.  I've got a lot of work to continue to do, but it'll be worth it.

Vicki

Today, April 5th, a week after my students competed in a martial arts touranment and did a wonderful job, some of them have promoted to their next rank.  I have been teaching in my own school for 13 months today, and today's rank test was just under 3 hours, for 13 students.  I now have purple belts.  In 5 months, they can be elgible to test for instructors.  This iwll be something they have to agree on, the statement of faith and the physical requirements.  They have already told me they are going to do so.  It's really amazing to see the God given talent I have to teaching, and the hard work of my students, and to see the results.   It's really something else. So hard to put in words.  All I can say is Wow, and again, wow.

Sorry it took me so long (ok, just a week) to give you all the results for the Spring Shiloh Martial Arts Association Tournament.

My instructor's students and my students competed against each other, and both schools didv ery well.  Results from my school are:

5 gold
7 silver
4 bronze
4 4th place

Men's sparring earned 4th
Men's forms earned 4th
Adult weapons (mixed male and female) earned 2nd and 4th

Women's forms earned 1st and 2nd

14-17 boys ntermediate forms earned 2nd and 4th

10-13 boys forms earned 1st and 2nd

10-13 girls forms earned 1st

7-9 boys intermediate forms earend 1st, 2nd and 3rd

7-9 girls intermediate forms earned 3rd

7-9 mixed beginners forms earend 1st, 2nd, and 3rd

6& under beginner to intermediate earned 2nd and 3rd

Also I have one that is tied in 2nd place with 2 others for the chance for Grand Champion.

It's so amazing to see the hard work these students have put into their training. 

Colossians 3:23

This will be the first year that we've had a Spring Tournament and I am so excited.

Last year, in October I had 10 students compete.  My two highest ranking students, competed in both weapons and forms.  The other 8 students competed in forms.  We came back with a student of the year plaque, 7 gold, 4 silver, and 1 bronze.

This time, March 29th, I have 17 competing.  I have one doing forms, weapons, and fighting, one doing just weapons and forms, and the rest will be doing forms.

I have been teaching for just over a year and I have seen wonderful results with my students.  They have come a long way.  These students range from 5 to 45 years old (the ones competing) and they have all types of personalities and abilities.  Several have injuries that limit their abilities, and one is blind.  This doesn't stop their motivation to get out there and have fun.  I admire them for that.

I'll be sure to post their results after the 29th. 

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