Talk about wrong place wrong time.

Reminds me of the last tournament when a concerned parent couldn't find her child and we calmly told her that a martial arts tournament was the worst place to try to kidnap a kid.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A karate academy was not the best target for a robbery, a Colombian thief found when his attempt got the chop from practicing students, police said on Friday.

The robber was recovering in a hospital in Santander province north of Bogota after the martial artists used their combat skills and took away his gun.

"An individual entered a martial arts school with a firearm but they managed to react, put their knowledge to use and disarmed him," Santander police commander Col. Julio Cesar Santoyo told local Caracol radio.

Life lessons

I learned a very important life lesson today. When wearing a taekwondo uniform in a parade, the sun can get in the opening at the chest. So now there is a nice triangle shaped sunburn on my chest. Great.

2nd Degree

Today I officially tested for my 2nd Degree Black Belt. It was an interesting time, but in the end, I passed! After not really worrying about my board breaks, I started to set up too far away from the step jump reverse side kick and didn't hit the board well enough. It took all three tries but I finally got it. So, on Tuesday, I will get the rank I've been working toward all year.

An eventful summer

It's been a long time since I took the time to update my personal blog. I guess I've spent so much time with my jobs as youth pastor and taekwondo instructor, doing the school web page, our family blog, and other things to really get a grip on this one. Time for that to stop.

I see that I left off at the Songahm World Championships, so let me start by saying that I went there and had a good time. I went there with the intention to do my best and that is what I did. I finished 9th in the world in my division for weapons. Also, my point total gave me the title of State Champion for Texas.

The funny thing was, I found out later that it was amazing that I competed in the championship at all. I had taken the Ground Fighting class with Sr. Master Arcemont (a great teacher) and had an amazing time learning some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu techniques. The second day of the class, my partner landed on top of me pretty hard. It hurt, but I didn't think anything of it because I was so sore already.

The day before the weapons competition, I noticed that it hurt to breathe deeply and to turn my body to my left. I wondered about it but it seemed fine, so I kept going, even competing with Bahng Mahng Ee in the weapons Top Ten competition.

Then while at youth camp (which I'll post on later) I realized that all my soreness had gone away, but the pain in my side was not. So when I got home, I went to the doctor and realized that I had a cracked upper rib. After a bit of healing time, I was back to training.


So after a year plus of waiting, training, waiting, and more training, I will testing for second degree black belt tomorrow night. So far everything has been going great. My form looks the best it has ever looked. I have had no problems with the board breaking in class. This means that I have to keep myself under control and just go out there to do what I have already done in the school. As one instructor told me once, it's time to go out there and claim my belt!

Top Ten!

Men's 17-29 1st Degree Black Belt Weapons Standings

It's official! When the final standings were release, I have made the top ten in weapons for my division. That means that my World's week is now officially busy. I will be competing in the top ten ring on Thursday.

Top Ten

When the final standings were posted, I am still on the list. I have been able to hold on to tie for 9th and therefore will go and compete at the Songahm World Championships in Little Rock, AR on June 21st. When I started doing taekwondo three years ago, I never would have thought that I would ever get a top ten bar of any kind. Now we'll see if I can move up a few places when we actually compete for the title.

Worlds Here I Come

I think.... the standings were updated last Friday night and it looks like I'm in. I don't think there are anymore tournaments left to score, so I should be heading to Little Rock to go compete in the Top Ten Finals for 1st Degree Weapons!

This is going to be a very interesting Worlds for me. First I plan on taking the Ground Fighting seminar on Tuesday-Wednesday. Then I go compete for the championship on Thursday. As soon as that's over, I get in my car and come back home, repack, and head off to youth camp with my new church!

The church is awesome and has a lot of wonderful people in it. I think that this is going to work out for all of us. I've had the chance to meet with most of the kids now. This is going to be a fun group to work with. I can't wait!

Is it enough?

1st Degree 17-29 Weapons World Standings

I have no idea if it will be enough points, but right now I am sitting tied for 7th place with three other men for Top Ten weapons competition. This is the final weekend for tournaments so now it's just a waiting game to see if I have collected enough points to stay in the top ten. If so, then I get to go to Little Rock and compete for World Champion. Here's hoping that the people in 2nd-5th who are separated by four total points all go to tournaments this weekend to try to improve their standings. If they collect all the final points, then people below me can't catch up.

Thing you can't teach...

Coach Bob Knight once said that "there are some things you just can't teach, and tall is one of them." Let me add another one to that, super-unnaturally-crazily stretchy. Just watching this makes me hurt.

Level 1 Certified

According to my profile online, my application for Certified Trainee has been approved. Looks like it's time to order a new collar for my uniform.

First Place

Picked up another three points toward a weapons championship this weekend. Right now I'm sitting so close to that final top ten spot. I hope that I can do well this next weekend so I won't have to stress about points the final two months of the season. It's now almost official that I have Texas State Championship locked up.

Went down to Houston this past weekend for Mr. Henderson's Tournament. I had a good time getting back with the guys in the ring, but a lot of the regulars weren't there. I've got a pretty good mark on my arm from blocking a kick that came after a judge called break. Life lesson... keep fighting until the center judge calls break.

In the Xtreme Weapons competition, well.... let's just say that the concept of personal victory is in full force. I walked in a 1st degree going up against two 5th degrees, one of which is going for World Championship in this. Just making it through the form was the goal and mission accomplished. Next time, we'll work on getting the music to work right the first time.

So all in all, I ended up with three medals from this one.

1st Traditional Weapons Form
3rd ATA-Xtreme Weapons Form
3rd Sparring

Meli picked up a silver medal in Traditional Forms with her new 4th and 5th degree ring.

Wednesday, we fly to Las Vegas for the Spring National Tournament where she will be testing for 4th degree black belt!

Three Trophies

3rd in Forms
3rd in Sparring
1st in Weapons
at the tournament in Lufkin today!

An Interesting Decision

This is going to turn out to be very insteresting, I belive. Last week, I went to the school campus for what I thought was going to an easy trip to meet the principal of the school in the town I had just started serving before heading to lunch in the cafeteria with the students in my ministry. Turns out, the school has a closed door policy to all groups so that no one can question who gets let in and who doesn't. Not my favorite idea, but I respect the decision. At least the superintendant is fair about it.

So yesterday, I get a call from the same school asking if Mel or I would like to come after school once a week and teach taekwondo for the after school program. Since I have the more flexible schedule and can be away from the do-jahng better than her, it seems like a natural fit for me to do it. Maybe this will give me the door into the school that I couldn't get as a youth pastor. Looks like ministry and martial arts can combine.

Black Belt

Guess I should have posted about this a few weeks ago, but I am now a first degree black belt in the American Taekwondo Association!.

Back to Blogging

Wow. It's hard to get online to blog when you're a newlywed. Not that I'm complaining. I mean I love my wife and I love being married, so the writing can just wait a bit :)

I have been on the job at the new church for two months now. I do miss the kids from the last group, but I love these new guys. We're going to spend some of the first weeks of the school year going over Dave Burchett's book "When Bad Christians Happen to Good People." Tomorrow, I'm going to sit down and try to see how I'm going to adapt this into youth lessons. I can't wait to see how it works out.

Today, I had my first bad experience though. For seven years, I've never had a problem being allowed on the school campus. Today, I found out that my new school system is a closed campus. They allow nobody on campus so that they don't have to worry about people from "undesirable" groups filing a lawsuit. I certainly understand their decision, but that doesn't make it any easier. There may be a way around it, but I'm not sure I want to do something that could cause a problem between me and the school board. They do a great job with the kids, and I want to be a support to them, not a harm.

In July, I tested for and received my first degree black belt! I tested at the school in front of Master Sustaire from Dallas who was there to judge Mel in her final midterm toward her fourth degree. We now own the entire school and so I've been doing a lot of the business side of the school to let her be on the floor with the students. With the back to school sign ups right now, we have 74 students with hopefully a bunch more coming. The record has been 80, so we'll see if we can pass that up by the end of the month.

Well, work is calling my name back to what needs to get done. So, it's time to have fun with Elijah on Mt. Carmel. Hope the stuffed buffalo doesn't mind pretending to be a sacrificial cow again...

Worlds

Greetings from Little Rock, Arkansas! I'm sitting here at the business center in the hotel checking in while my wife and our friends are all taking a nap. After teaching the youth ministry at Cumby back on Wednesday, I headed for Little Rock to go to the ATA World Championships.

This is an awesome event. It's my first time here and I'm overwhelmed with all the stuff going on. Last night we went and watched the high rank testings. Wow! I can't wait until I'm able to do things like that.

Then this morning, I went to the School Owners and Staff Training with Grand Master and the Master's Council. Sore does not even begin to describe how my legs feel right now! :) But it was a great workout and I learned a lot of things about balance, self-defense, and techniques. Today was the Top 10 Championships. Soon, I'm going to be driving over to the arena to watch the Master's Ceremony. A bunch of high ranks are going to be testing for 7th and 8th degrees, so this should be a very interesting night.

It's all been really fun so far! Tomorrow a couple of the students from Meli's school will be compteting in the Opening tournament. Then I'm heading home to see how the church vote goes.

An Open Note to All Readers

Ok, a couple of people I know have done this since they also work for churches and have personal blogs. So... here goes.

1. Every thought expressed here is my own unless I quote someone else or give them credit for the idea. My thoughts and opinions may not be the same as County Line Baptist Church, it's staff, my senior pastor, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, or anyone else related to the church. I also must say the same things in regards to the American Taekwondo Association.

2. This is a personal site. I'll try to keep negative thoughts out, but sometimes, bad things happen. As a Christian, I believe that hard times can give us the strength to become who God wants us to be. When you read this blog, you will be getting me, in raw form.

3. I am a Christian. I make no apolgies for that. My entire worldview is shaped by my belief in God, the Bible, and what that will create me to be.

4. Please feel free to comment, even if you disagree with me. I love to talk to people, so I will try to respond as much as I can.