.Tuesday, May 26, 2009 ;
4:40 PM
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Each day is special and unique .
Yesterday was the day of the National Inter-school Taekwondo Championship 2009 for the Secondary School divisions.
Mine's a long story, and I'm gonna explain it now.
My defeat, which was fast and early, had many factors.
Reasons are as follows:
1) I wasn't used to fighting in open-air conditions, which was in Regent Secondary School's Hall. I've always been sparring in air-conditioned areas.
2) I wasn't used to fighting in front of a huge crowd of many people, but only familiar faces of between 10 - 15 others.
3) The mouth guard wasn't being held firmly in my mouth and so I had to shut my mouth to hold it in place, preventing me from shouting loudly.
4) I was very bloated as I had just drunk 1.5kg of plain water to get myself from 51kg to 52.5kg
5) From the 52.5kg, Arlene and Mr Lai put a handphone and some other things in my shirt(my belt prevented the items from slipping down) to gain that extra 500g, so just nice, 53.0kg(the min. weight requirement).
6) Not many people I know is able to execute a jumping back thrust effectively and powerfully. I'm used to having people do turning kick to me all the time. However, my opponent was good at back thrusting and that gave the match away. For turning kick, the closer you are, the harder it is to launch. But for back thrust, the closer you are, the easier it is to hit you.
7) I didn't have time to warm up as my match was 4th, and I was the 7th participant. The time between the calling of my name and the sparring was spent doing number 3, 4 and 5.
These are the main factors contributing to my defeat. Good experience for me, and I don't mind losing the match. Haha.
The rest of the time, from 9.30am to 6pm, I spent it helping Santos take videos on his video camera of Nicolas and Carissa(friends from the Tkd Sch) when they were sparring while he took pictures and I used my other hand to take the same videos on my handphone.
I also chatted with Nicolas, Carissa, Nicolas' mom and my tuition friend Lance from Maris Stella High School.
The 3 of them were all black belts already, while I was only a Black Tip, aka Brown-black.
Too bad nobody took videos of me sparring as it was still too early and they either hadn't thought of it or hadn't brought the equipment with them yet.
This is the group from Hai Sing that participated in the Sparring competition. Good job everyone!!