SIX O'CLOCK

No need to wear a watch when Francesca is around.

RUNNER UP

Diving is one sport I painfully love. Most of its charm to me derives from its cruelty. Jumping into the water is a matter of one second. One damned second you strive for years to make a blessed one. If you mess it up, there's neither room or time to recover. It's just splash. That reminds me of Poomsae competitions, where no second round or KO by headshot can save you from one fatal mistake. Speaking of diving, however, airborne breakings someway reverse the idea. A human springboard projects you skyward as you attempt to reach and break a wooden board showing your best stunt in the process. It's diving into the air. It's an ascension bearing the risk of an Icarus' fall. So, in spite of their poor real fight application, these techniques make for a sublime metaphor of the taekwondo lifestyle. Dream big. Run fast. Jump high. Hit hard. Mind the fall. Get up right away.

RE-DUX

Gosh! This guy brings back memories to me...

LOVE BITES

All great victories come from some kind of love. The love for your sport. The love for someone you want to show your mettle to. The love for your students in spite of how stubborn and ungrateful they can be. Vanessa Ciancimino should know very well the three of them. The new Champion of Italy (Jun F -52Kg) had kept her talent sealed for so long, someway fleeing the responsibility of it, when a few days ago she decided to try out her class on the fighting mat overcoming every opponent in the country.
All's well that ends well, I guess. However, I am currently wondering how much love a teacher should allow themselves to feel for and show to their students. Training & coaching is a form of education. If you give too much, you end up spoiling your athletes. Also, you must realize you can't substitute your effort for theirs. Because for all the good things you can teach them, it will be them stepping on the mat, not you. And yet, when a competition is over, feeling partly responsible for the smile of a boy (let alone a girl) can be the thing you enjoy the most in your job. So you understand you must become like an angel keeper, following every move of your athletes while making hardly visible your presence in their lives. Without ever hoping they will return half the love you're giving them. Someday, they will not be able to notice you're clenching your fists in your pockets as they're climbing up the highest step of the podium. But you will know very well when the smile bending on their faces swells yours with sheer pride.

OUT OF THE DARK

Finally.

THE WORLD BOWS TO YOU

Do yourself a favor. Watch her. Watch her as she performs Koryo. Because if you don't see her, you could never believe it. This small girl is the absolute pinnacle of TKD Poomsae. Su-Ji Kang is the name. You know, here in the West we are used to considering Korean Poomsae players as aliens. But she... she is something aliens would certainly be admired of. And yet she's human, as there is one moment in every World Championship when she gently trembles on a single stance, like she was telling us she's neither magic or extraterrestrial, only stellar.
Whereas Korean athletes doing the splits while kicking are not new to us, she impresses in both speed and verticality. She actually moves faster than your eyeballs; when you realize she's kicking, she's already using one foot like a visor, while holding her legs at right angles to the ground.
A few months ago, the Olympic Games celebrated some real giants as the best fighters in the world. This early December, the aesthetic branch of our discipline crowned this cute girl as its unparalleled Empress. Then tiny Su-Ji prostrated herself on the mat in a prayer of thanks, thus looking even smaller in the moment she was proclaimed the greatest among the greatest for the third time in a row. This is what real champions are made of.

(Pre-editing photos: mastaekwondo.com, Rowdy Leedeman, Nico Randriam)

ON YOUR MARKS

My previous post was about the dark side of judges. Now I want to make them justice and give them credit for the difficult, often boring and low-paid job they carry out and our sport couldn't do without. Also, it is so thrilling to find out their marks and realize you're in for a medal, especially when they are handwritten on a board like in the good old times.

WHO'S AFRAID OF THE EVIL JUDGE?

I am.
Every competition is a kind of adventure, or a story. Great stories are usually made up by chapters: training, getting injured, picking up training again, training more, travelling, trying to sleep the night before the tournament, warming up, waiting for your turn, performing across the various rounds... what else? Oh yes, the verdict. Which is not up to you, though. But to those misty figures who are the judges. If you're a long date follower of this blog, you know I think Poomsae competitions are about Truth, because they expose you to the merciless product of your work, talent and cold blood. There are no excuses for a poor performance. Once you step on the competition mat, it's all up to you. However, performance and result are very different things as they are separated by your opponents' own performances and the judges' ratings.
Once I was told high level gymnasts never quit their discipline because of the incredibly hard training involved, but only because of the judges, who can -and often do- destroy years of work with a single mark. As in all aesthetic sports, in TKD Poomsae as well the results are determined by judges, who can be subject to incompetence, political pressures, and personal interests. How many dubious medals awarded to the host country at every World or continental championship? This is why I try to persuade my students to consider the performance over the result, because whereas the performance is always true, the result is not.
It's hard, though. As hard as cutting out the last chapter in a story when you're putting together the threads of it. If you're out to catch the deepest meaning, you can't help starting from the ending. But if you really know you did well, and the referees' ratings are no excuse to hide the truth emerged on the mat, then part of your loyalty to the Truth itself consists in being proud and content with that. Even though I know, pride doesn't glitter around the neck.

YOU'RE NO MATCH FOR ME

Because winning is already good, but showing off a little in the process feels pretty much awesome.

WHEN WILL IT BE MY TURN?

Competitions for children are supposed to be fun. Keeping them waiting for hours is just torture. No, not to them. They only get bored, it's their coaches that will certainly get insane trying to keep them quiet as they noisily reclaim their right of being children. Please, take this into account next time you arrange a tournament for 100 little creatures and you only consider one competition mat.