BOMs Away - The one about Hanmadang

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

 

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.

This week's link-up is at the bottom of the post.

 

I have done no BOM work this week beyond washing fabric pieces for month 2 & 3 of Fiesta.

 

 

We've had the pleasure of hosting these three Korean youth Taekwondo experts who have been here for the U.S. Open Hanmadang.

 

Jong Hwa, Jung Gyo, and Eun Suk (family names omitted) *LOVE* the pool table in the few moments they get to relax at "home"!

 

 

 

A couple of days ago, we went down to Garden of Gods, where they could climb around on some of the rocks:

 

 

 

They are especially tickled this evening, enjoying ramen noodles on the roof of the garage, to which there is easy access from the room they're staying in. It totally cracked me up when I heard Scott call out to these 3rd-degree blackbelts: "Careful not to fall!"

 

 

 

I spent all day Friday and Saturday afternoon/evening working at the World Arena as scorekeeper at the Hanmadang. Here I am, tired but happy, and still in my work-out ponytails, leaving at 8pm last night:

 

 

 

My favorite moments were the single-person division for a multiple sclerosis young woman, to whom the judges awarded far higher marks than anyone else who entered the ring. I teared up so much from her courage (followed by that gesture from the judges) that I couldn't call out the scores for quite some seconds. The head ref just smiled and nodded at me, on the exact same page as I. The other favorite moment was working a division of 12 young adult men competing in the high kick, when the leaders of that group pushed the rack all the way to 103" before the winner finally couldn't break the board. Shortly after that, the next-older division in the ring next to me topped out at a break at 105", which broke the U.S. Open record.

 

I did my own humble best when I competed on Saturday morning in creative board breaking. I performed a routine of the maximum-allowed 10 boards, and the great deal of practice I've put in served me well. Muscle memory and determination kicked in so that I broke every board on time and worked through a spacing glitch without hesitating at all (placed my final-three holders too far from the previous set when I had to change a spinning roundhouse to a skipping roundhouse due to inner-ear dizziness). It was funny, because in a fraction of a second upon realizing the stride issue, my brain just went into "smash them all!" mode. I have zero memory of what I did for those last 3, but Devon was holding in that series and said it looked smooth and nobody could tell I changed it all up except those holders. Another holder said I got two kicks in and a hammer fist, so that's good. I broke every board on first strike, which thrilled me. It was a blast and I never even felt the rip on my finger that gave me my first official Taekwondo blooding. It was well-behaved and didn't hurt me for my later timing/scorekeeping duties once my own event was locked in to the permanent archives. :)

 

 

And all my work got me a silver placing even though I was the lowest belt level in the age/experience division!  

 

 

 

I'll be doing that fun event again next time I enter a competition.  ;D  

My favorite pic so far is this one of Devon with her boyfriend, Kyle:

Devon and Heather both competed also - they did the same event I did, and Devon added jumping high kick and traditional poomsae to her list, excelling in all three. We'll have to get a pic of us in our doboks with our medals and add it in here a couple of days from now.

 

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 Did you get any BOM work done recently, or have your days been as crazy as ours?  :D