Kicked in the head

Had a martial arts tournament over the weekend (I'll post some picks at some point this week), it went well enough. I'm still breathing, anyway. I did discover that most people 2 months away from their black belts can kick higher than their waists. So my first sparring match started with me getting kicked in the head by some 18 year old kid. The rest of the match didn't go much better, I'm sorry to say. The second match I had went much better, but I still lost because at the last second the guy I was fighting against kicked me in the head! (Head kicks count as 2 points, everything else is 1). I suppose I should stretch or something...

I went down there thinking that I was going to have to break a board with a spin kick as part of the tournament. Yes, the board is held at head-level, so I was stressing about it a little bit. Sadly, though, when I got down there they decided that only black belts would be allowed to break. As much as I wanted to try it, my groin muscle actually talked to me...saying 'Thank god!' I guess it knew that had I tried for that kick I would have torn it in half. Wonder what that sounds like.

Even though I left at 4:30am Saturday and got home at 8pm Saturday (it was in St. Louis), with all of that time either getting beat up or sitting on my ass, it was a good day. I'm hoping to get down to the next tournament in Houston in October. I'll be a black belt then, so I'm sure that my sparring story will somehow end up in bloodshed.