1st Tournament! and a placing

Kaleo took another positive step towards his career in the UFC ;). Tournament was held on Saturday night at the KFA facilities. There were three sets of skills to be done at the tournament - basic skills, KATA and sparring. Of course the highlight of the night would be sparring tournament.

Kaleo did average on the skills and didn't place. When Kata demonstration was performed, to my surprise, he picked the Heian Neidan which is difficult Kata, but was where he needed to be before achieving his next belt (Orange). I think Sensei was surprised he chose that one too. He performed the first 10 or so steps and was ahead of where he should have been to my surprise. What was also surprising was that he was first up on all events aside from sparring and did not crack under pressure, or get any sort of stage fright. Pretty awesome for a 7 y.o. at his first tournament.

The sparring tourney was great. First three points wins the matchup. The first round took him up against an older child with some crafty moves and an orange belt. After a flurry of non connecting punches in a squirmish, the opponent would drop to the ground. At this point Kaleo (as well as myself) did not know that you could hit an opponent while he was laying on the ground. So Kaleo kinda stood there waiting for the other kid to get up. The other kid scored a couple of good up kicks from the ground landing solidly. Darn! I think to myself 0-2 and we're going to be out of the tournament in less that a minute. The deficit would be tough to surmount. The next points Kaleo landed some solid combos as well as a couple of accurate kicks scoring the next point. When the other kid went to the ground again, I hollared at Kaleo to throw some punches and he responded, getting a point while the kid was grounded. 2-2 tie great. Kaleo scored the final point with solid combo punch kick and Bam! first round comeback from 0-2 deficit. I was stoked!

2nd Round matchup was against another taller yellow belt. No much to say here, Kaleo scored three straight point with front punch kick combos. He got a warning for "excessive celebration" on his 2nd point which was appropriate. In another match, another kid got points taken for taunting by saying "c'mon" egging other opponents on. I felt bad for the other kid in this round as he lost quickly in three straight.

3rd and final round was against another Orange belt who was bigger taller faster, but to my surprise Kaleo was not intimidated and moved forward pushing the action, but fell in three straight. I was really happy about his performance though. He placed 2nd in the sparring tourney.

Here are some pics. He was really happy to place, and went up against higher ranked and much more physically mature kids and placed. I'm gonna give Dana White (president of the UFC) and see if we can get some sponsorship dollars for more training ;) -lol.