News from the mat

so like i said, last weekend the kid had a tournament. its always a long day especially now that she's a higher belt...they go in order so the higher your belt....the longer you wait. she did her forms first and i was immediately nervous...not about her forms because she's really good at both single and doubles....i was nervous because usually the people you compete against in forms are the people you have to spar. from far away in the bleachers it looked like it was all men....she sparrs guys in her class but she gets really nervous about sparring strangers. when i got down on the floor, i realized that one of the "men" was an older woman with a short hair cut, but the other 2 were definitely guys...she took 2nd in single forms and 1st in double forms. but i could tell she was worried about having to spar guys....as i said before i'm not above bribery...and there are several incentives that she would appreciate..... background...i bought her an ipod for her birthday a year ago...i said, dont take it to school...she did and it got stolen...after much slave labor and alot of harrassing her, i got her another ipod for christmas....she did pretty well with it, until she went to the mall with her friends and left her purse somewhere...the purse had her ipod, her wallet and her camera in it. the purse, wallet and camera got turned back in...the ipod did not...so that was the end of her ipod life....last summer my sister in law gave me an ipod which i use for running. on rare occasions she gets to use it. she has an mp3 player my brother gave her that shes been using but one of the buttons broke. so i thought well i was going to get her a new player anyway it just wasnt going to be an ipod. the deal was this (of course when i thought she was sparring boys) for a 2nd place i would get her an mp3 player. for a 1st place, i would buy her an ipod shuffle... when we got to the floor for sparring, they had set her up with all girls..some younger but still all girls...mind you when she started at her first tournament 2 years ago (she was 12), she sparred a 16 yo who was 6ft tall and a grown woman. and they werent gentle with her. the first girl she sparred was 10. but about the same size as the kid. she didnt beat the crap out of her but she did win quickly on the seven point spread. the next girl she went against was shorter but also much faster. the kid was losing by about 6pts. if the other girl scored one more point she won. but the kid came back and through 2 more tough rounds, they ended up tied. in the event of tie, they go into sudden death...which made us all nervous...the other girl landed a solid kick on the kid and i thought it was over. but they didnt give her that point and with one tiny second of opening, the kid landed a hard kick to the middle....and it was over..... her first gold medal....and a new ipod shuffle...