We Love Carolina Kicks

Tonight the kids celebrated T’s trip to US Open. Even though he didn’t bring back a medal they celebrated his going and fighting strong and good. 

The kids are going to be signing T’s poster and he gets to take it home next week. T loves being a part of the Carolina Kicks Family. 

Pictures from US Open

T fought well at US Open 2019. He learned a lot and looks forward to going again next year and trying again. Only one person, of the 9 he knew personally, actually medaled.  

T’s Drawings

T is getting to where he likes drawing more and more. Wanted to share with you what he recently has done. 

US Open - more results

To show you how stiff the competition is the Master who coached T only got to the second round before getting beat in the senior division. One of the older girls that T respects fought in the Jr division and got beat first round. Another Master we know who fought in the senior division lost in the Quarter finals. And another guy in the Senior division that T knows and respects got knocked out first round. Competition on this level is very hard. It’s no easy task to win a medal. One must work hard, very hard, and now T knows just how hard because he knows how hard all these competitors train and still couldn’t bring home a medal. He’s learning so much at such a young age but if he’s going to be the competitor he wants to be he’s got to learn now and make changes so he can be great competition for other competitors some day. 

Home Sweet Home

We arrived home safe last night at around 11:30pm. It was a good flight. We had a tailwind coming home so the flight was much shorter than when we went to Vegas. I loved that. 

The durantion of our stay in Vegas I walked around 24-26 miles. Lots and lots of walking. Their convention center is so huge. It was connected to the Westgate Resort where we stayed. 

It feels so good to be home. Tucker was so excited to see us. I think he’s still looking for Dexter though. Breaks my heart. I know in time he will stop looking. The flowers The Fetching Post sent are still so beautiful. It was so thoughtful of them. Now that we are home it’s really hitting hard that Dexter is gone. I miss him so much. The house just isn’t the same without him. It’s been more of a double emotion for me because we had to put our other sheltie, Charlie, down at this same time of year when T was around 9 - 10 months old. Dexter would have turned 11 years old in August. 

At any rate, being back home in my own bed is so nice. I don’t get to sleep in it much these days because of T’s training schedule. It’s all good though because we are seeing huge differences in his fighting and that’s a good thing. 

The only one from our crew to bring home a medal was Chris.  He brought home Bronze. It’s a tough tournament. T will be better prepared for it next year but there’s still no quarantee he’ll win a medal. We are so proud of everyone who fought at US Open because they all fought well. For T’s first experience with going to US Open it was good. He learned a lot. And he knows now what he has to do to improve more and be better for Nationals in July. All the fighters picked up ranking points for Nationals so they didn’t walk away empty handed in the end and that makes it worth the trip. 

Now we focus on USAT Georgia State Championships on the 17th. After that is USAT NC State Championships on the 23rd and AAU Maryland Qualifier on the 30th. That’s all the competitions for March. In April he has USAT PA on the 13th and USAT VA on the 27th. In May he has his home Dojangs tournament on the 4th and on the 11th (which is T’s birthday) he has Spar Wars in VA. Then there are no more tournaments until Nationals in July. He will have two weeks of training in June before the team goes to Nationals. T will do two National events (USAT and AAU). One will be in Minnesota and the other in Florida. 

T’s Fight at US Open

Walking the Vegas Strip

Walking the Vegas Strip wasn’t as horrible awful as we were told it would be. Yes there was some homelessness. Yes there was some dressed rather disgustingly. We prepared T for all of that. He said why would anyone wanna dress that way anyway to which his dad and I were like exactly. Smart kid. He did get this mask and we got to watch a water show to music and because of copyright laws I can’t post the video we got of it. I can post some of the pictures though. T had a great last evening here in Vegas. The lights on the strip were amazing. Next time we will have to make sure he gets to ride the roller coaster that was on the strip. He did get to do the Big Shot drop thing on top of the Stratosphere. He loved that. 

US Open 2019 is in the Books

It was a good learning experience for T. He drew a National Champion first round so that cushioned the blow some when he lost. He told his Master he still has a lot to work on and told him what it was he needed to work on and that shows a lot of maturity on his part. He’s learning a lot and he earned ranking points so that’s good. Every ranking point he can earn is a good thing. 

Fight Day!

T is so ready for fight day. Looking forward to watching him at his first US Open event. It’s going to be a fun day. 

Schedule and Bracket for Tomorrow

T has to win four fights to medal and five to win Gold. We don’t know most of these kids. It’s his first time fighting many of them. It doesn’t look like T’s rings will be live-streamed. Looking forward to tomorrow. So excited for him to be competing in such a prestigious event.