ATC
Senior Master
Great showing for both Kym and Charlie. Two tournaments in the same week is tough. Don't forget to factor that in. Each tournament they get better and better.
Good Vibes
- Thread starter mango.man
- Start date
StudentCarl
3rd Black Belt
I'm in awe of the tremendous achievements of the kids above. I'm proud to share that my son Paul won gold in the 16-17 green belt light/middle division at his first Junior Olympics. He had three fights, winning the first two with head kicks and having to adapt to win in round 3 of the finals. At 6'4" and 155#, he's got a lot of reach and a strong head kick game. With a very defensive opponent and 0-0 at the end of the second round, he went to the bottom of the hogu with short kicks to win 2-0. The smile in his picture on the medal stand says it all.
I was impressed by the skills and character I saw in Orlando. Was anyone else from here at the Monday Level 1 coaching seminar?
Carl
I was impressed by the skills and character I saw in Orlando. Was anyone else from here at the Monday Level 1 coaching seminar?
Carl
Great Stuff 6'4 wow...You have allot to be proud of...Gold medal Outstanding!!!
ATC
Senior Master
That is just unacceptable. USAT needs to come up with a better system. Jimmy Kim and Stanford do a great job. Match numbers are projected on a screen so you know when to start warming up and when to get to holding for your match.
Stanford does the same thing and they have screens all over the venue. So no matter where you are you know what match number each ring is on. The way USAT does it is a bit archaic.
StudentCarl
3rd Black Belt
Anything would be an improvement, but this sounds great. Even a white board in holding would help. I saw no visual references in the whole venue except for the ring numbers. All week during JO's the guys running holding were making endless, NEEDLESS announcements about who they had or hadn't already called for as they got more and more frustrated. A $20 4x8 sheet of melamine panelling and a dry-erase marker would've solved it. I suggested it but was told they didn't have enough people for something like that. Must not be enough visually oriented people involved.
Carl
ATC
Senior Master
You are correct. In this day and age of technology they need to do something better than what they are doing. How much does it cost to have a laptop, a projector, and a king size white bed sheet to project on. Seems simple enough to us. Why not them?
This would have ensure that spectators knew what ring their competitors were in also and at what times. Things would just run so much smoother.
I may suggest this to Master Givins. He and Master Nelson run the staging and holding area.
There were some horror stories I personally witnessed, but things seemed to get better as the week progressed. The worst was my daughter's fight on Tuesday. They decided things were going smoothly and announced they moved up her 2:30 report time to 12:30. Mind you, anyb ody weighing in on the concourse upstairs couldn't hear this.
We arrived at 2:00 (I figured I was 30 minutes early) only to catch some minor attitude but no big. Mind you, we sat in holding until 6:00. Then we had to sit through two more divisions ringside until her division was called. When they finally called her division, they set up the first fight, kids in hogus, coach's in chairs...then they call dinner. Bottom line is we didn't fight until after 8:30. Most of the girls waited 6-8 hours that night.
That was the worst of it waiting-wise.
There was one ref in particular I had issues with...whatever ring he ran seemed to have controversy based on his judgement errors. In the worst case, after runnign a no head contact division, our player was up in a junior safety rules division. Our player landed a light head kick, the judges gave the points to the other guy (who did not even lift foot from ground) in a case of first ref hit the wrong button and the other two followed suit. Center ref called a kyongo on our guy for head contact. Coach raises his hand and center ref admits he's still in red belt mode and reverses the kyongo, but not the points going to the other guy. In fact, waves off coach's raised hand....we lost by 2 points. That stung a bit.
things started runnign smoother over-time. most of the other refs did a good job. I saw lots of punched scoring in the 14-17 and adult divisions. The new rules have led to a lot more head hunting, but a better level of head protection. No major complaints with LaJust other than busting the zipper on my sock and them being otu of my size right before my fight (had to wear a sock two sizes too big).
Anyway, congrats to all who competed last week...the competition was fierce this year and just stepping in the ring took guts.
Peace,
Erik
We arrived at 2:00 (I figured I was 30 minutes early) only to catch some minor attitude but no big. Mind you, we sat in holding until 6:00. Then we had to sit through two more divisions ringside until her division was called. When they finally called her division, they set up the first fight, kids in hogus, coach's in chairs...then they call dinner. Bottom line is we didn't fight until after 8:30. Most of the girls waited 6-8 hours that night.
That was the worst of it waiting-wise.
There was one ref in particular I had issues with...whatever ring he ran seemed to have controversy based on his judgement errors. In the worst case, after runnign a no head contact division, our player was up in a junior safety rules division. Our player landed a light head kick, the judges gave the points to the other guy (who did not even lift foot from ground) in a case of first ref hit the wrong button and the other two followed suit. Center ref called a kyongo on our guy for head contact. Coach raises his hand and center ref admits he's still in red belt mode and reverses the kyongo, but not the points going to the other guy. In fact, waves off coach's raised hand....we lost by 2 points. That stung a bit.
things started runnign smoother over-time. most of the other refs did a good job. I saw lots of punched scoring in the 14-17 and adult divisions. The new rules have led to a lot more head hunting, but a better level of head protection. No major complaints with LaJust other than busting the zipper on my sock and them being otu of my size right before my fight (had to wear a sock two sizes too big).
Anyway, congrats to all who competed last week...the competition was fierce this year and just stepping in the ring took guts.
Peace,
Erik
I really thought both AAU and USAT did a better job this year, Zachary was invited to try out for the Puerto Rico Team later this year so all was not lost because he got beat by poor officiating. I know we all saw some some the kid that he fought in AAU got five points from kicking him in the butt five times, go figure. All in all it was a great time and we had some very good mathes both at AAU and USAT. I can only hope that they keep getting better each year.
Great News for Zach
