high drama

OK Linda, this entry's for you - HIGH DRAMA. =) Haha...

I won! =) Even though my knee was purple, it was the most spectacular match of my life. Well, Sr disagrees and thinks it's just because I had the chip on my shoulder, but it was certainly one of the most dramatic.

First rd bye, Second rd 5-2 win over a girl from PA, and then the finals.

"Christinoona, did you win your battle? When's your next battle?"

Let me just say that I love my boys - if only I could bring the little kids to every tournament.

End of round 1: 4-4

I kicked her in the head once, she kicked me once. Both times, only one point popped up. They polled the judges and put the extra point up for her, but not for me. Jr was LIVID on the sidelines. And then Sr walked in the ring and started talking to the center ref - wow I guess times like this his composure and quiet mean-ness comes through. "If you want me to come in here and argue over every point, I will". Meanwhile, Jr gives the stare of death from the side. Still, the score stood at 4-3 with 5 seconds left and I slammed a badachagi and cheered huge. 4-4 tie.

End of round 2: 5-5

So much checking. Just trying to bait each other, practically for half this round. Finally she went, I countered, bam 5-5. More checking, drawing, motioning, time runs out. Match has to go to sudden death. I come back to the chair and Sr starts talking like mad. Suddenly he grins. "This is so exciting! This is what we live for!" To which I say "um, no. This is what YOU live for!" He says he hesitated when he said this, but we came up with a plan - the hoojin badachagi, the one kick that hurts my knee. We'd talked about it before Team Trials as the "kamikaze badachagi" but it had been in jest. This time he was serious. Meanwhile Jr just can't contain himself on the side. I love having them both there.

Sudden death: 1 minute on the clock, whoever scores the first point wins. Trip to Germany is on the line, but more than that it's about what all that pressure comes down to. When it came down to it, all I heard was "come on, sparky noona!" from Derek on the side, and that made me focus. I love my boys, they're awesome.

Check, check, more checking. I attack off the line and miss and quickly reset. Totally thought she would have countered that, phew. She tries to time me off my check, I slide back and kick the backside. The WS crowd jumps to their feet, Sr jumps out of his chair, Jr jumps up and shouts "YES!!!" as loud as he's every shouted (or so he claims) - meanwhile I'm jumping up and down like a maniac cheering and she's on the ground with her hands over her head. The refs were slow registering that point, but if anything the collective effect couldn't be denied.

That was a GREAT match and I have to hand it to her, she's one fierce competitor. At the end of the day, we're still friends and she was so gracious despite disappointment that I think that's something I can learn from. Takes two good competitors to have a great match and she is indeed a great athlete.

After we bowed out, I realized I couldn't walk on my knee - it really was a kamikaze kick. I hobbled back to Sr and got me a big hug. Yay, me. And then he realized my knee was hurting and helped me hobble off, but they made us come back for the medals.

I think my lasting memory would be standing there in the ring with all my crap on, trying to stay off my knee when Jr comes running in with a half falling apart plastic bag and a chunk of ice. It looked like someone had broken icicles off the doorway from outside or something, at that hour there weren't any more medics. In the absence of medical supplies, he made a valiant attempt at tying this bag of "ice" to my knee (but it totally failed). I found it very strange but kind of cool - like, you're Sab you're supposed to just stand there and grunt and yell at me, not kneel on the ground and tie ice to my leg and be worried. Yeah I guess they do care quite a bit more than they're willing to show, but when they don't think about it, and sometimes it comes out. As he tied it, he said "jang-hah-dah". I think I'll remember that moment for the rest of my life. Right up there with how my mom danced around the mailbox when I got into MIT. There are some times when you see the heart of people as they are, and those stand out in my memory.

For all I went through in the last 2 months with my knee and with Sabs and with everything else - and for the disappointment that seemed to be the end from Team Trials - Saturday was redemption.

WS had a great showing, and I got to coach Derek who was super cute and fought awesome. It was really funny seeing Sab get so nervous and hold his breath waiting on the side for him to fight. Funny how someone so stoic and scary can become...a nervous parent. Hahaha. I seriously thought he was going to come and boot me out of the coach's chair at any minute, but he stayed composed throughout the matches. Coaching him made me all nostalgic since my first tournament was when I was a blue belt and I also took gold in forms and bronze in sparring. He won his first match 8-1 or something like that - he just went in there firing and kept kicking. I was so proud of him, he did great! He fought this really good kid second round and lost by a lot, but totally stayed with him and tried to do the things I said, so that was really cool. Great attitude, it was a really cool experience to coach my coach's son. And so ridiculously cute to see Dylan cheer and get excited for his hyung-ah and give him a big fat hug when he was done.

In general I was really proud of my kids, and though some of them lost (and some of them lost rather badly) they still fought hard and learned from the experience so hopefully we'll have good ground to work up from. There is much potential to be realized here...and I do love to bring potential to realization. =)

2.5 weeks till Germany!