It was certainly different than about any other sporting event I'd ever been to. The most friendly violence I think I've beheld. Never seen snake skin swords given away as trophies, sure does beat all the plastic trophies of shrimpy golden runners that I have gathering dust. Actually, I think my mom gave them to the ARC, I'll have no evidence to prove to my grandkids that at one time I could have kicked there tiny grandkid asses at about any distance from a quarter mile up.
I also didn't realize that girl and boys would compete with each other up to about age 13. This led to two very odd things. If the guy was dominant (usually the case) the whole fight looked VERY rapey (a word I have decided to invent if no one has called dibs on it). If the girl was dominant (the most fun to root for) you had to wonder about the boys self-confidence from here on out in life. One little girl in particular managed to be both super cute and a killer as she trounced all the boys in her division two win two snake skin swords. We saw some boys come over to one of her recently vanquished little boy foes to sympathize in his plight, one boy offered up the best consoling he could, "Well at least she didn't guillotine you!"
Not the rapiest picture, but by far the rapiest fight I saw.
Most of these agonized looks were shot at there fathers who were siting on the sidelines cheering them on and shouting instructions that made no sense at all to me.
She'll be an interesting one to date in a few years.
As you can see in this picture, those lousy medals were little consolation for not getting a snake skin sword.
This little guy became one of my favorites too as the tournament went on as he one by one quietly destroyed all his opponents.
It was amazing how small some of the kids were. The brutal 50 lb and under matches were something to behold.
This kid also was a killer. But, he looked like a future accountant. I wanted him to be announced as, Standing at 4 foot 7 and three quarters, he's equal parts naughty and nice, from Washington D.C. he's THE TAX MAN! It's audit time punks!
Somewhere inside it's always April 15th
I had to include this girl who fought in her weight class and then turned around to fight in the class above. When I left she'd won three swords and was getting ready to fight in yet another division. The 16 year old in me was kind of in love.
This image will haunt me for a long, long time.
My friend Angela going against...the women of Baltimore.
In the end the women of Baltimore didn't seem so scary after all. And Angela won all her matches!!
