Tournaments and Testing

It's that time of year again. Our martial arts school is busy with tournaments and testing. Last Saturday there was a tournament in Powell Wyoming. We only had one student go to this tournament. Bad timing this year, as our tournament is this Saturday. In this day and age people have to make hard decisions, so most of our students are going to the tournament in Billings.

Usually when we go to Powell, we take a side trip to Meeteetse and stay the night and get our gramma fix in. We didn't get that this year. First, Jennifer has to open on Sunday mornings and that means she has to be at work by 5:00 am. We don't like her walking in the dark, but her goal this year is to get her drivers license. Second, the one student needed a ride and we took him, so no overnight stay this year.

We left Hardin bright and early at 5:45 am. Made sure Jennifer was up and about so that she could get to work by 7:00 am. We picked up our student, fortunately he was ready. We ate a nice breakfast in Billings, that is our usual routine. It is a long time before we get to eat again. We left Billings about 7:15 am and arrived in Powell at 9:00. The tournament starts at 9:30, but as usual nothing starts on time. We got there in plenty of time. Gary and I helped out with judging and making sure our student was doing ok. He gets pretty nervous. He was the only belt in his age group, so for his forms they had in with the older age group. He didn't mind that. Then for his sparring they put him in the right age group, but with a couple lower belts. Our student placed 1st in both events. His sparring event was the crowd pleaser, sure alot of people watching that bout. He sparred with a competitor that he sparred with before and lost. It was a close one, he won by 1 point. I don't think his opponent has lost before as he had a surprised look on his face when it was over.

After the tournament was over, we drove to Meeteetse to have dinner with the grammas. That was the one consulation that our student had to do, I told him I would buy his dinner anyway. He didn't mind. He is from Palm Springs California and ended up in Hardin to attend college at Crow. He has never been to that part of Wyoming before. I think he thought it was going to be a longer trip. He got a quick history lesson with Heart Mountain and the Cowboy Bar. He was amazed to learn that Butch Cassidy spent time in this area and said that he was going to call his mother and tell her he ate where Butch Cassidy did. We have the photo proof of it.

The grammas were waiting for us outside. Gary was teasing Mom about eating in the car and he got the look. I laughed. We all ate a great meal, but as usual it was too much. We didn't eat ribs this time, saving that for another trip. We did get in trouble with gramma for not coming down enough. We are definately going to have to work on that.

After dinner, the three of us made our trip back north. The wind was blowing like crazy in Cody, especially coming out of that canyon. All the times we have been in Cody, Gary and I couldn't remember when the wind was blowing that hard. They guys had to hang onto their hats. I drove home, so filled the truck up with gas. I was throwing out a plastic pop bottle, it didn't make it to the garbage and I gave up trying to run it down. Have no clue where that darn pop bottle went. The awning over the gas pumps was moving. We made it home safe and sound. We got Jennifer to work on time Sunday morning and then spent the rest of the day adjusting to the time change.

Jennifer and I are testing for our 2nd and 3rd degree black belts. We have been busy getting our books together and practicing our testing stuff. Then on Saturday is the tournament. We both will be competing. Jennifer wanted to compete as a 2nd degree and would only do so if I competed so I am. There are also 5 others from our school competing. Many of them first timers, so we will have a bunch of nervous kids on our hands.