Arizona Karate Tournament

Today was the big day for Christopher and his competing in the Karate tournament here in Tempe, AZ.  He had to be there by 8:00 AM to check in and get his name tag.  We arrived about 9:30 AM and took our seats in the grandstand of a Middle school gym.  Tight fit for an old man like me.

They usually get the younger children out of there first, but this time they were near the end of the competition.  That coupled with the large number of participants made for a long day.  We did learn about the scoring for the competition and some of the rules.  That came in handy trying to understand who won and why.

There are three parts to the competition:  Kata, Kumate (fighting) and Weapons.  Christopher didn't participate in the Weapons part but did in the other two.  He placed second in the Kata and got a medal for that.  They mistakenly gave him first and he told the judges that he came in second, not first.  They reviewed the scores and he was right and they moved him down to second.  Sounds to me like he has learned the sportsmanship part of the competition very well.  He had two very proud parents there to congratulate him. 

Christopher in red belt.

Christopher in red belt.

Christopher showing off medal and his form.

 We were seated near the middle of the gym and the black belt contestants were doing their thing in front of us most of the day.  There were a number of division by skill, age, etc and also a number of women contestants.  They didn't seem to have near the skill of the men, but did put on an interesting show.  A number of the men were very good and clearly better than others.  Two especially were obviously very good.

Men's black belt competition

By the time Christopher finished his competition it was way past lunch and everyone was famished.  We went over to Chevy's Mexican restaurant and managed to stuff ourselves and put an end  to the hunger pains.  Since it was so late we planned on skipping dinner, but Herbert did go out for Chinese food to tide us over.

We plan on leaving here in the morning and make our way to Las Vegas, NV for a few days.  They are calling for 60mph wind gusts and snow somewhere along the way there.  I am hoping they are wrong and we have a nice, clear day for travel.

I did get a chance to watch some basketball games on Friday and Saturday and got to see some teams play for the first time.  No big upsets on Saturday like Friday, but still some very good games.