Lessons learned at the MO TKD Invitational

That’s my boy in the red, kicking with all he’s got at the 2011 Missouri Taekwondo Invitational!  Jacob competed in sparring and Caitlyn competed in forms.  Before I get to how they did, can I just confess something? Watching my kids compete can bring out the “mean Mama” in me when their opponent isn’t competing fairly.  Let me explain.  Jacob had two sparring matches.  In the first match, he sparred someone from Champion, our martial arts school.  Unfortunately, Jacob lost that match, but the other boy competed fairly and was friendly; trademarks of our students.  However, Jacob’s second match was against a boy from another school who repeatedly pushed Jacob.  Now, I don’t know a whole lot about the rules of sparring, but pushing while moving forward isn’t allowed.  And that’s exactly what that other boy was doing.  The referee did warn the other boy once, but that was after he already had a 9 point lead!  And, he continued to push Jacob!  Now, here’s the “mean Mama” part.  Caitlyn and I were sitting right next to the other boy’s parents and I just couldn’t seem to stop myself from making very loud remarks like, “that boy really needs to stop pushing Jacob!  Why doesn’t the referee disqualify him!”  Yeah, you know I wanted those parents to hear me and how upset I was about how their boy was behaving.  That other boy wasn’t displaying very good sportsmanship…but neither was I. 

And there’s my girl with her silver medal in forms!! She had to compete against two different girls.  The first time, she was flawless.  The second time, she forgot her form about a quarter of the way into it!!  I could see the panic set in on her face when she asked the referee what to do.  He told her to start over, and she got it the second time.  She was so surprised to receive second place!
I’d say we all learned some lessons from this event.  Jacob, who a month prior had won a medal for undefeated at our school’s sparring games, entered the competition confident of winning.  But it was not to be.  He still demonstrated an indomitable spirit and got a taste of humility.  Caitlyn, who has never won an individual medal, tasted victory for the first time and demonstrated perseverance when it seemed all was lost. I learned that I can’t always fight my kids’ battles, as much as I want to, and that I should still demonstrate integrity when faced with injustice.
I’m proud of my champs!