2003 National Tae Kwon Do Championships

Advanced UW Madison team members Tim St. Clair, Rick Parrish, Ben Moderson-Kox, Dan Alkhovsky, Emily Carpenter, and Andrea Nelson participated in the National Tae Kwon Do Championships in Beloit on April 26, 2003. With brand new uniforms and thanks to everyone's hard training, they all looked in top form. Special thanks to Grand Master Fu, Jericho Jansen, and all the other Bak Shaolin Eagle Claw instructors for their time and coaching.

Results

Men's divisions:

• Rick placed 1st in forms and 3rd in sparring, in the black belt division.
• Tim took home 2nd place in forms and 2nd in sparring, also in the black belt division.
• Dan got 3rd in forms and 3rd in sparring in the blue/green belt division.
• Ben placed 2nd in forms in the blue/green belt division.

Women's divisions:

• Emily got 2nd in forms and 3rd in sparring in the white/yellow belt division.
• Andrea took 1st in forms and 1st in sparring in the white/yellow belt division.

Highlights

While the women were on one side of the gym and the men were on the other, Emily and Ben started and ended their forms at the exact same moment. Tim's form looked great, despite losing a chunk of skin off his foot when he came around for the sweep. Rick's shouts towards the end of his form startled and impressed the judges, who complemented him with "good power" at the end, along with the giant trophy.

In sparring, Dan's "Christmas ham" kicks (blue helmet pictured left) were potent, and he landed a beautiful one to the back of his opponent's head, knocking his helmet off. His sister was videotaping the melee, but Dan and his opponent moved out of the shot just before the kick.  A classic moment on video is when you see the opponent's helmet flying across the ring.

Rick's kicks and punches (white helmet pictured right) were powerful and hard, to the extent that the judges told him ease off his opponent. Of course, that didn't stop him, and Rick delivered a nice back kick that caught his opponent by surprise.

Andrea had a by in the first round, but in the second she fought the only other woman besides Emily in her division. Despite Andrea's considerable frustration with opponent's blocking, covering up, and back-turning, she managed to break down the guard and keep up the attack until the judges called for points.

Team rookie, Ben Moderson-Kox, did an outstanding job, too. Although he was warned twice for hard, fasts, punches to his opponent's face.

Emily did well and fought hard. The other woman was difficult to get in on, because she covered everything and punches to the head weren't allowed.