Hartzog Happenings

We had a really nice Mother's Day celebration brunch at the Pond House at Elizabeth Park this year. It was a gorgeous day. We had a big group of us so we got the head table right against the windows. Afterwards we took a walk around the tulips and what will be roses soon. My children even agreed to pose for a couple of pix for me. I've clearly gotten rusty though as my lighting was crazy.

Aren't I the luckiest mother???

Last of the tourny

Here are a few more from the tourny I thought were cute. Mima, Stipa, Auntie Heather, Grandma, Oompa, Uncle Adam and Auntie Lindsay all came to cheer them on. The touny was held at a middle school about 1/2 hour away in their gym. Oompa found a "Hall Pass" on the floor and wanted to make sure everyone know he had his hall pass!

Julia Tournament Pix

Julia chose to compete in forms (see Devin's tourny description) and sparring. Sparring is basically karate type boxing with all the padded gear on. The competition plays out much like what I would imagine "rooster"-fighting to be. It was a little crazy. Super-veiny hockey dads have nothing over some of these parents.

Julia did well enough to get a couple of points off her opponent. Her opponent ended up in 3rd place overall, so her first bout was pretty heavy competition. It's a little surreal to see your kid fighting though, I have to say. It was one of the more exciting events to watch. I spent most of my time trying to figure out the scoring.

Julia, who loves to compete, was totally relaxed about this whole thing. She wanted to try harder than she had to, so she learned all of the first kada (though in her age/belt they really only needed to know half of it). The whole form is something like 31 moves. But she wanted to do it all. She paused a couple of times to think, but did the whole thing! She did really well. I think they called them up in order of placement, and she was like 6th, so that was pretty cool.

Last week in class Ms. Valente decided to do a mini-tourny in class with the first kada. She chose the 3 finalists and the class chose the winner by vote. Julia was one of the 3 finalists. I have to say she had all her moves down and really did an excellent job, I would have voted for her too. Then when the class chose the winner, she got all but about 3 votes. She was ELATED. Good job, Tiny!!

Devin Tournament Pix

Devin signed up for two events at the tourny - weapons and forms. In weapons, you pick a weapon to perform (he chose his favorite nunchuks) and for forms there are these long series of movements called katas (kadas??) that they show. I think we figured out the key to winning the big trophies was precision of movements and loud Kiah's. When you see how many people are watching, it can be a little intimidating, but they did a really nice job. I was especially proud of Devin's self control while he say next to one of his friends at the ring. This friend was chatting away through all the other contestants and really not demonstrating good respect and self control. Devin didn't get sucked it. A sure sign karate is working!!