Generally speaking I keep information about my children off the internet for their safety. This however is a big point of being able to be very proud of my youngest step-daughter so I am breaking that rule now.
On 02/16/2008 Vanna entered The Day of the Warrior Karate Tournament. She was the lowest rank in her division and obviously had been in class the lest amount of time. The Tournament is from three schools, all owned and operated by Larry Adams, one of the coolest guys on this planet. The schools all enter this tournament in different divisions, there were nearly a dozen different divisions this year. Vanna's was 10-13 intermediate, she just ranked into that category shortly before the tournament, otherwise she would have been in the beginner level. The school with the most wins at the end of the day got the big school trophy. Vanna's school was twenty kids less than their nearest competitor, so it was an uphill climb for her school.
Above is the awards for participation. Master Larry said that "Karate tournaments are such a big deal, you get something for being brave enough to show up."
This is Larry speaking to Vanna and a bunch of other kids about the fact they would be waiting a while and needed to remove their headgear. It was quite a long wait, we got there at 10:00 am, and Vanna's first fight was at 2:16 pm. By the way, I was using my other daughter's camera and didn't realize it was set to grainy black and white at this point.
While we waiting Vanna fueled up.
Finally Vanna was up to fight against a Green Belt (For those of you not in the know, that is two belts above her Purple Belt). Honestly I just was proud at this point she had the guts to get up in front of so many people and even attempt to do this. As you can see in this picture as well as the others, there are two rings for the fighting.
The object is to score points by hitting chest, stomach, or head gear (but not face) the first one that does gets a point. Honestly I was thinking at this point that I would be amazed that she scored one point.
Her opponent moved in really fast and score a point right off the bat, she returned the favor very quickly in the next round. Then her opponent came in for another point.
It was here that Vanna tied it up again at 2-2, then she managed to get ahead to 3-2 and then to 4-2 (matches go to 5)
Accidentally she managed a low blow, her opponent still managed to get a point when this happened making the match 4-3. Believe it or not it was an accident, she was aiming higher but the boy moved. She didn't hit him too hard and he got his wind back pretty quick.
Things got pretty serious here though, and after a bit of a struggle Vanna scored the winning point winning 5-3.
Unfortunately the camera I was using ran out of battery charge as well and that is all the fighting I was able to catch.
She advanced to the championships where she faced one of her classmates. The match didn't go well for her, but she still scored a second place victory.
This is where she walked up and received her trophy.
A closer view as she was coming back to the bleachers.
This is Janice, her son Stratan (Just left of her) is the boy Vanna faced in the finals. Janice had all four of her children in the tournament and all four brought home trophies. Several times matches were stopped so she could concentrate on one rather than both her kids simultaneously. Her youngest girls had to face off in the championship in their division. I had to get a picture of all that gold.
Lastly came the school trophy.
Despite having so many fewer kids, our school came out on top, the final score was 52-48. I am not sure how the score is exactly kept, but I know last years was only one points difference.
It was a long day, we finally got out at around 5:00 pm, but it was a great deal of fun an well worth it. I want to thank Master Larry Adams for putting this on every year.
I want to also say how proud I really am of Vanna, she worked really hard and made it through a tough day and showed that she really had it together. I don't get to brag on Vanna as much as I would like to, so I am making sure I do on this day.