National Taekwon-do Tournament
Some time ago I wrote about how after years and years of trying different sports, I had found mine. This experience only corroborates that.
After only 5 months of taekwon-do training and a muscle tear in between, my coach told me that I was going to participate in my first tournament. As expected, at first I was not sure, I even considered not going, after all I had just started and in the tournament there would be people from all over Spain. But I’m pretty easy to convince, and soon after I had my registration done.
The tournament fell right after my final high school exams but I managed during the previous month to combine studies and sport. I studied in the mornings after a first training session and after several study sessions I went to the tatami to do 3 hours of training. I had never been so exhausted and focused on my goals.
My coach was satisfied with my progress, both in technique and combat and encouraged me to participate in kickboxing classes as well.
Those days were very intense.
It didn’t help when just a few weeks before the tournament I got a call from my coach announcing that there was no one in my weight (-65kg) and category, soft belt. So the organization had decided to put me with the senior category: black belts (among which there was a 36 year old second dan).
Obviously that made me reconsider whether I wanted to participate, but my coach told me that he would try to put me with people my age even if I entered the -60kg category.
After going out many times to run, I managed to enter the category and now it was definitive, I was going to compete with people up to red-black belt.
When I arrived in Alicante, where the tournament was taking place, a strange calmness came over me. It was probably because I hadn’t trained that day or the day before and so my body was rested, but it instilled in me a calmness that I was definitely going to need.
The next day I spent the whole morning coaching the younger kids in our school waiting for the junior category to come and compete.
First I had to do my tul. As had happened to me in combat, there were hardly any people in my category (all men to be noted). Even so, it was the first time I entered a tatami, I was very nervous. Before I knew it, I had a gold hanging around my neck.
The complicated part came around 17:00 pm when the bouts of my category started. I was the first one to fight, which meant I was going to have one more bout than the rest of my opponents.
When I entered the tatami I felt a pressure on my shoulders, I put on my mouth guard and clenched my fists. I was fighting a blue-green belt.
Something clicked. You know that scene where everything around the protagonist turns black and he can only see his opponent? It was something similar. It went by very fast, and I remember quite little. Blows here, kicks there, the two rounds were a constant tension. When we were separated I looked at the jury. Suddenly I felt a tiredness in my body that was hard to explain, maybe it was the accumulated tension and fear. The count was done. They were going to raise the flags. They raised them. I had won.
I gathered my things and left the tatami. I started to take off my sweaty protections. Before I could even finish, I was called for my second bout.
In disbelief I returned to the tatami. This time it would be against a blue belt. His protections were kickboxing. At that moment I knew it was going to be complicated.
They were two very close rounds, we had to separate several times and we received many warnings. There were moments where I felt I was losing control and didn’t know how to get out of his game. But in the last seconds I threw some good combinations, some combinations that felt really good, like they fit together in a choreography. It was a fight where I ended up crying for certain punches. But it was also a fight I won.
It was fun. It was a match that, despite the fatigue, I was able to enjoy.
And that’s how, after only 5 months, I got my first two golds in what I hope will be a sport that will last me a lifetime.
For this and everything they have taught me, I wanted to thank sabonim and bu-sabonim for everything they have done for me and the confidence they have given me. Because without them I would not have been able to find this new passion.
Thank you.