Karate State Championship

Earlier in the spring little miss Haana had gone to the qualifier for Karate championship. Now it was time to go to State. This week had already been going very busy with STAR tests, Peek music festival where their orchestra group performed at UNT and daily after school karate sessions to prep for State.

Like last year they would be going together in a bus from school. The bus departed at 345am on Saturday. I called little miss Haana at 930am to check how it's going. She said they were about to reach their destination. I asked about her breakfast. Then I asked if she had coffee in the morning. She replied she took a nap. Then I asked again, 'Did you have coffee?'. 'Huh?', she couldn't hear me. I repeated the question again and the line went silent. Then I persisted again. This time she fessed up, 'Yes, but then it slept for 2 hours'. A-ha! I've been on her case about how caffeine is not good for her system. But today is not that day!. 'Ohh, look at you! Dodging me, weren't you?' I joked and we laughed out loud!

Little miss Haana participated in weapons kata. And she won 2nd place. I love her weapons kata cause her weapon of choice this time is a fan, and she has a mean routine with two fans!

She also participated in individuals and in teams competition, but did not place. 

Then it was time to head back. She got back home only at 1130pm in the night, dead tired!

Probably because she was carrying her medal which weighed like a ton!!!

Karate State Qualifier

I had been hearing about the state qualifier for awhile. Little miss Haana has been prepping her karate routines- demo team, teams kata, weapons kata, individuals - for last several weeks. It has been hard work. The state qualifier is for students from various regional schools, and selects which ones will go to the state championship for karate in May. The week leading up to the qualifier, little miss Haana had been working on her karate katas every day after school, coming back late and so tired! 

Last week was the state qualifier. I was excited about the weapons kata. This time little miss Haana had chosen two Korean fans as her weapon of choice. I had seen some of the moves at home, but without the actual fans, and never the full kata. 

Raj went with her for the qualifier. And thankfully recorded much of little miss Haana's performance. During the weapons kata I heard other people in the audience go "woah" as little miss Haana did hand stand and cartwheel and then elbow stand and reverse cartwheel. There were considerable oohs-and-ahhs from the audience! The judges seemed to agree. In the teams and individuals, little miss Haana scored the top 1st place! On the weapons kata too, she scored the 1st place!

She came back home at 2pm. Weighed down by 3 giant gold medals!!! Smiling wide at a job well done!! I had her favorite lunch on the menu- red beans and cilantro lime rice.

I watched the videos of her performance multiple times, adding my own oohs-and-ahhs each time as well!!