Matthews Brothers Best Tournament Ever, Midland 06-11-11

WOW! It has been more than a month since this tournament and I am finally getting around to posting about it.

We had not planned on going to this one because it is not an AOK tournament and there were no points to be had and we thought Mattie May would want a break. But she decided at the last minute that she wanted to go, so we packed up Saturday morning and headed west.

The tournament was held in one of the private schools in Midland and, man, did they have some great facilities! We were allowed to use the dressing rooms and they were super nice. I love this sign that was posted in the girls dressing room. I may have to put this on Mattie May's wall some day.

Doing some stretches with teammates...
or maybe she just goofing off!

The rules meeting.

It's been a long time since we let her enter the Demo division,
but several of the kids she normally competes against was in it,
so we let her too.
I'm sure Po being judge was an exciting thing for her!

All the participants with their trophies.

I tried to make it easy for her to be picked out of the crowed.

Now time for competition
and as always, she begins with kata.
(I still have camera issues, so blurry pictures)

Not a lot to talk about here,
but we did figure out more of what she needs to work on.

Awaiting the judges scores
which were not real good.

Addressing the judges.

Getting instructions from Shihan.

Because this was not an AOK tournament,
Mattie May and Rayven were in the same division
which doesn't usually happen
but the girls didn't seem to mind.

Watching Rayven spar.

First round, she was up against Kylie,

and she lost.

I don't even remember the score.

As I said, we had not planned on going to this tournament so we went on Saturday morning. We decided we would not be doing that again. The entire day, we were all just not up to our normal tournament selves. So even when we decide at the last minute to go to a tournament, we will be spending the night so we can all get ourselves focused.

It was still a good day. Shihan treated all the kids to ice cream after we ate an extremely late lunch and ice cream always makes a day better.

Until next time, God Bless.