We were back from Dublin less than a week and Sigung was asked to teach at Capital Conquest. A gathering of martial artists from around the world. It was held at Lac Lemay and Sigung invited Sid and I to go with him and help out. It was a two day event with 4 hours of seminars on each day kata competition on the morning of day two.
Sid has so much fun. She did 4 seminars on the first day. Nunchuk's are fun but she needs a bit of work ;)
Hanging with the ninja turtles
Jujitsu seminar
Amazing Goshindo seminar with Allain Sailly.
The first day was so exciting. We got to meet amazing athletes from all over the world. Sid spent time with new friends and was introduced to some high ranking people in the martial arts world.
The next morning at 9 was a kata completion. Sid really wanted to compete but they were only accepting teams of 5 from each dojo. We had tried to put a competition team together but having just come back from Ireland, most families were unavailable. Sigung is good friends with Therien and mentioned that Sid had really wanted to compete. Therien told us to be there for 9, he was pretty sure there was a team that was missing a member. We woke up early and drove to Gatineau in hopes of being able to compete in front of so many highly ranked judges and participants.
Sid got her silks on and was warming up when we were given the news that there was an adult black belt team missing a member. She would be competing with them. The Sensei of SMA, Rick, came to meet Sidney with the top black belt on the team and he was kind to Sid but you could see he and his black belt were a little apprehensive about having a little kid join them. Rick turned to Sid and said "could you show us your favourite kata?". Sid who LOVES a good show said "SURE!" and she jumped up and did her Ch'uan Fa 3 which is the form she competed with at the worlds. Rick's jaw dropped, the black belts jaw dropped and they both turned and looked at me. Rick said "How old is she? I am so sorry I had any doubt! We would LOVE to have her on our team." The black belt was thrilled and scooped her up and took her off to meet the rest of the adults on the team. It was priceless seeing their faces when they first heard that they would have this little kid on their team. And then when the saw her do her form they were floored.
Here all the adult black belts line up. While she is the only kid and the only one who isn't a black belt, she is also the only world champion in the group! And she showed them all why she is a world champ.
Because it is a team kata, each member is scored and the top team score is counted. Sid scored second highest for her team and they took second place!
You can see the video here
Alain Sailly approached Sid after the competition and gave her some very kind words. He was really impressed with her. The first thing he said was "I was NOT expecting that!"
Next part of the day was seminars. Sid connected with this 17 year old athlete out of Evolution / Tri-Star. She is amazing at Jujitsu and was showing Sid her stuff.
Annie girl lives really close to us and adopted Sid as a little sister. We have since been to her house and we pick her up and bring her to the club many Wednesdays so she can share her jujitsu with our students.
Overall it was another amazing weekend of sport and friendship. We are so glad we decided to go and will go again next time Capital Conquest rolls around.
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