Sawyer's first karate tournament

Sawyer's karate is though a company that has a few locations around the state, and today they put on a tournament for all their students.  When I first heard about it, I thought Sawyer might be a little young, but when I saw the events, I knew he could probably handle them.  They were to go up against kids their own age and skill level, and it said everyone gets a trophy.  We went out to Henry Foss High School and signed him up for all he was eligible for- luckily they were the first 5 events so we didn't have to be there the entire tournament.

Here were the events for the day:

The first thing they did was the parade of champions where all the kids went on to the floor in lines in front of their sensei.  It was funny because there were pretty short lines but Sawyer's was called and the lines were so long they needed 3 lines that reached the width of the gym!  Sawyer was so confused what to do and was walking around like John McCain in the town hall style debate (yeah, you know the one I'm talking about).  We finally got his attention from up in the stands and got him to the back of a line in time for the National Anthem.

That's him stepping out int the very back

 The first event was for fastest kick.  I walked him down to the check-in room when they called for ages 4-6 and went back to my seat.  Next came the cutest thing ever- they had the little ones walk in train-style.  They were so cute, I couldn't handle it.

They had 4 stations set up with special punching bags.  They are able to measure how strong the punch is.  They helped the little ones with what to do.

Here is sawyer on that second red bag

 I am not going to post pics of all of them, because they all look the same, but after their turns they send the kids to go sit down and the helpers put them in the order as they finish so you can see where your kids are placing.  The take the lines straight to the trophy table.  This first event, Sawyer took second place.  I was so proud and since I had seen the trophy table, and also seen Toddlers in Tiaras, I was worried he'd throw a fit if he didn't get one.  It turns out he didn't care because he was so proud of his trophy, but said "I want 2 medals" when he got back (medals are just for participation- you get trophies for 1st 2nd and 3rd.

The next event was fastest fist.  This was where they went to the special bags and a beep would go, and they would have to try to punch the bag as fast as they could.  It wasn't very good for the 4 year olds though, as you could see the assistants have to actually TELL the kids when to punch (making extra time) and sometimes you'd see them hit the bag afterwards because the punches just weren't very hard being so small.  He didn't place in that one.

here he is after fastest fist after his turn holding his results paper up while the other kids finish

 Next came strongest kick.  He did pretty well and I thought he would place since he had sat at 3rd, but unfortunately the last girl came and knocked him out.  He did get his "2 medals" though like he wanted, which was good.

After that was fastest kick- same thing as before: you hear the beep then kick as fast as you can.  He was like the second kid but he kept his first place spot the whole time!!! We were so excited and proud to see him win a category!  I told him "you won!" and he goes, "We all won!"

Here he is walking back to the trophy table, they were doing a circle with their train lol

Handing out the trophies

The big trophy

 The last one I was worried about the most.  They would be doing their "escapes" but it was for time and kind of complicated.  They had to run to each guy, do the escape, then run to the next.  They would be docked seconds if they do it improperly.  We practiced his escapes out in the commons and hoped he would figure out what to do since he's kind of a space cadet and can't focus lol. (He wandered off more than once throughout the day.)  It turns out we had nothing to worry about because he did it perfectly!  Unfortunately he wasn't the fastest at it, but he still won 3rd place which was really good because there were quite a few kids.  Some were faster but they didn't do them correctly so they were docked.

Here he is doing the escape one.  Funny story, we found out afterwards the lady at the start with the flag is my friend Natalie's sister, who I've met a few times but didn't realize it was her.



He ended up with all the trophy sizes, which was cool, as well as 2 medals.  I was actually hoping he would get all the sizes.  Unfortunately after winning he was pretty upset with the "small trophy" winning 3rd, but luckily it wasn't a huge fit and we told him how some kids got no trophies and I was most proud of him after that escape drill.

This happened once we got back to the car:

Overall, I was really pleased with the tournament.  The registration was only $5 plus $7 each event (it got cheaper the more you signed up for) so you're pretty much just paying for trophies.  It was really well organized and seemed to go pretty quickly.  They would get through each age group quickly and the only thing that took awhile would probably be the escape drills (which we were first age group anyway) and the forms/katas and sparring which he is too young for anyway.  The high school kids even sold snacks as a fundraiser at good prices.  We will definitely be taking him to more of these since they have two a year.  Plus, we got to add his medals to our medal holder and show off his trophies until he gets a shelf in his room.