Over

//Over//

So it’s over.

It feels kind of weird, that after weeks of training, the competition is over. I complain and complain and complain about doing pattern during training. But now that it’s over, I kind of missed it. It’s sort of became a habit I guess.

My leg is itching to do that side kick in my first pattern the whole day, especially after seeing how most of the people in the competition can’t seem to do it.

I wanted to win something so badly this year. Last year, I didn’t take the competition really seriously, didn’t train hard. Despite being in the category with the least amount of participants, I manage to screw up. So I told myself, next year, I must and will win something, for the lost opportunity last year, for myself, and for hc tkd.

So I participated, and did train hard. I fought hard for that individual spot because I really wanted to achieve what I didn’t manage to do last year. And when I did get it in the end, it sort of act as a confidence booster for me, and at the same time it gave me motivation to work even harder, cause in a way, I’m depriving someone else of this chance, so I don’t want to waste this individual slot that I worked hard for.

But things don’t really go our way in our life do they?

I didn’t manage to achieve my goal.

In the first round, I was unexpectedly calm actually. With 7 judges, 4 in front, 3 behind, and me alone on the big mat, I thought I would crumble under pressure, I thought I would screw up like I did last year. Surprisingly, my heart wasn’t beating faster, I wasn’t trembling, and I just did the pattern. I was disappointed when I saw the scores, 6.36.

With that score, I barely made it to the finals; I’m probably the bottom 3 of the top 8. I must say my morale was really low at that point. In the finals, I really wanted to give it my all, all my strength in the punches and blocks, get all my stances right, but this time round, I can’t really keep my calm anymore. Maybe it’s the results from the last round that affected me so much, but I couldn’t get my 100% focus.

I got a 6.72.
5th (out of 10 people)

Beating the 6th person by 0.02 (he got 6.70) and losing to the 4th person by 0.04 (he got 6.76). It was actually all pretty close, the person who got second got 6.88.

I am glad I manage to beat out 3 other people, but I really wonder if I am better than them, or if those 4 who beat me were really better than me?

Who knows, with a different set of judges, I may have been first, I could have gotten last. The fact that I got 4.1 out of 5 from 1 judge for accuracy and 2.4 from another just proves how subjective it is.

I got last (4th out of 4 pairs) in the pair category. I was okay with it, because I don’t think I did well. I wasn’t in the right mindset because it was just after my individual finals.

But when others come to tell you that we were much better than some of the other pairs, it kind of makes me wonder if we were that bad afterall.

I have seen it for myself yesterday, some blatant mistakes from some people who got ridiculously high undeserved marks. After my pair competition (my last event), I was really really really hoping and praying that both blue belt guys and girls team will do well.

I feel really bad and sad for the blue belt girls and guys team, and blue belt girls individual especially. They don’t deserve the placing they got in my opinion. They deserved much better than that based on yesterday's performance. But that's just my biased opinion, and obviously I am not the judge, so oh well.

I was really pissed yesterday, with some of the judging. Thinking back now, I wonder, are the judges biased? Or am I the one that is biased just because we are from the same school?

I guess with competition like this, where the difference in marks are usually so small, and the judging is totally subjective, things like this are bound to happen. Maybe they really do feel like those blatant mistakes are not worth making the team down or something. They gave the scores, we just have to accept it and move on.

At least I get to do my pattern 3 times yesterday. That's 3 minutes of pattern on the competition mat after weeks and weeks of training.

Oh well. Life goes on.