:minimalist

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

 

Long post warning.

So...

The flight out to Chicago on Thursday was delayed about 2.5 hours, supposedly because of weather problems in the area, but later we found out that it was because the President was flying to or around Chicago. So, that wasn't fun. Other than that, the flight was pretty uneventful. Landed in Baltimore at around 1:30 AM Friday. By the time I was actually in my hotel room, it was about 3 AM. Slept until about 8. Weigh-ins were at 2:30 PM, so in the morning me, Angie, and Boges did a light workout. Angie and I both were at around 121, which is right in between the two middle weight divisions... so she went down to 110-121 and I went up to 121-132. Meaning that I was at the bottom of my weight class. Oh well... Just to make sure we wouldn't be in the same division, I wore my sweatshirt, drank some Gatorade, and put weights in my pockets. Weighed in at 126.5. After that... dinner. Woohoo. Went to some Italian place across the street from the hotel along with some people from Mr. Ozuna's team. It was pretty good... ate lots of bread. That's some good stuff... Didn't go into the city to eat crab this year... oh well.

Saturday morning... competition begins. Opening ceremonies at about 9 AM. My first division was women's advanced kung-fu long weapon, which I placed first in... my only gold medal of the weekend. After that, kung-fu short weapon... my 2-month old sword form! And yet somehow I managed to place 2nd... amazing. Then the form that I thought I was going to do well with... my open-hand kung-fu form, which I ended up not placing in. Which was a little bit ridiculous. But then again, there were about 15 women in the division, and I went second, so maybe that had something to do with it. But it still sucked, because I worked on that form a lot. Placed 4th in northern mantis form, I think. Or maybe it was 3rd. Oh well. Not that any of the above mattered... because after that, the fighting began.

Wow... there were a lot of fighters this year. Mostly men, of course... that's the way it always is. The first 28 out of 70 or so fights were all men's fights. Boges was fight #7... It was a good fight, even though he didn't win. Mr. Curran won his fight #10, Mr. Gumataotao (isn't that a great name?) lost #12 to some jerkface idiot who had an attitude problem. Miss Dong was the first women's fight, #29. She beat some girl from some school. Yeah. Then Mr. Curran fought again, #33. He lost but later went on to fight for 3rd place. Miss Pauka was #44... she also beat some girl from some school. I was fight #45. Good times. I beat a girl from Free State Martial Arts. She hit pretty hard... but her endurance wasn't strong enough. Then Miss Dong lost to the girl from Germany... fight #46. After #48 (at around 6 PM), there was a break until about 7:15 to set up the ballroom for the master's demonstration. Angie beat Miss Pauka (fighting your teammates sucks. I hope I never have to do it.) for the national title, fight #54. Miss Dong beat the girl from Free State for third place, fight #59. I had to fight the German girl (who, by the way, has had many years of experience, including some World Tournament fights) #60. Other people tell me it was a good fight, but I'm not too sure. My jaw still kind of hurts. My neck was definitely sore the next day. But it was worth it. Me and Angie went to get ice cream after the fights were done. We'd only been talking about it for what, two months? But now that training is done, back to eating when I feel like it... haha :)

Sunday was the kenpo divisions, which was pretty much people from our school and Mr. Ozuna's school. Did okay with those. In the afternoon... closing ceremonies, Lei Tai awards. In the evening... awards banquet. Which was interesting. Ended up going to sleep at around 2 AM. Monday... Angie's flight was around 8:30, so she left with the 6 AM airport shuttle. I slept until about 8, checked out, and sat in the lobby with Boges and Ryan until 2 PM. Flight home was uneventful, if a little turbulent. I love the lack of humidity at home. It's wonderful. I'll miss it next year.

Oh, yeah. This year our team won first in Forms & Weapons, first in Lei Tai (fighting), and first overall (for the fourth year in a row). In other words, we rock. :)

So, that's it. Done for another year. Adam took some pictures, I might post them up later. Not many, though. Maybe I'll just post the picture of Collin. He's amazing. Yeah. I'm done now. If you actually read the whole thing, I'm amazed. Because there's nothing more boring than reading about people you don't even know.

Coming home safely is always a blessing. Thanks to everyone who thought of me, prayed for safety, etc.

And now I'm leaving for New York in 3 weeks. Hmm.

My name is Jose. I am a ninja.

bananna 2:05 PM  |