This weekend we went to Kansas City for Noah's first ATA tournament. We had so much fun I almost feel guilty. We stayed in a hotel right next to the tournament at the KC Expo Center. We (Jenna and I) were not able to interpret the schedule so we ended up waiting around for 2+ hours until Noah's group was staged. He competed in traditional forms, sparring, traditional weapons, combat weapon sparring, and creative weapon forms.
I have to brag on him. For most of the morning there were 25 rings of adults competing, sparring, and such. Kid's were scattered here and there but overall there weren't as many kids as I thought there would be. When he was called he was in an initial batch of 30-40 kids 8 and under camo belt and up. From there they were split into groups of 6-8 over 3 rings side by side. Each group was given half of a ring which I guess makes sense taking their size into consideration. Parents were scrambling everywhere to make it to there kid's ring. As luck would have it Noah's group was the first to get settled and the judge was counted in. So of all the kids and all the parents, Noah was the first to be called.
He jumped up and shouted, went to the center of the ring, and bowed. They do a quick thing in Korean and Noah answered perfectly and bowed again. She told him he may begin on his count and he was a rockstar. For the next several minutes we saw kid after kid come up sheepishly, not know how to answer, forgetting their forms, etc. Not our Noah though. He is such a confident kid. I honestly think I'm more proud of his confidence than his actual abilities. I don't know how we got that right but both of our children seem to just fit into their own skin. I pray it lasts forever.
