Eric participated in his first Jiu-Jitsu tournament today, held at his school. Both Patrick and I got to go, after dropping off Alex and Natalie at their own activities. I'll skip to the punchline here before going in to the details. Eric got a gold medal!!! We are so proud of him! This first picture is a picture of him with Daniel, the owner and instructor of the Jiu-Jitsu school.
When we first got to the school, Eric found a friend to play with. They were even grappling with each other before the tournament started. We parents just looked on and wished we had their energy. We wondered if they would have enough energy during the competition after all the running around they were doing. This is a picture of Eric jumping over the middle part of the mat. The mat had black borders with two middle areas that were light gray. He jumped over the middle black area. Even though he is a little blurry in this photo (because I couldn't use the flash in there, so I had to bump up my ISO, which made all the pictures grainy/blurry), you can appreciate how energetic he is.
Patrick helped me pick this photo out as an example Eric trying to complete a submission. He didn't quite get it, but he got enough points doing other moves that he won against this competitor and then a second competitor to win first place and the gold medal. Interestingly, his two competitors were both girls. They had two guys coaching the kids during each match, each giving instructions to one of the kids. Eric's coach said that he liked coaching Eric because he listens. There were several times I heard him tell Eric to hold his position (so he could get points) and Eric did. I had no idea what the strategy or moves were, so it was nice to hear a commentary about what they were supposed to be doing.
They tried to match up the kids according to age and weight class, which was difficult given that there were only nine kids competing. They separated the kids into two groups. Eric's group had two boys and two girls, and the other group seemed more varied in size and skill with five boys. One boy in the other group in particular, was a gray belt, the only non-white belt of the kids, and he was noticeably more skilled. This picture was after Eric's second match and I love the look on his face, so tough but with a hint of a smile and looking directly at me as I took his picture.
This may seem like an unusual photo to see in this post. What happened was that Eric wore his gold medal all day after he received it. He wore it when Patrick took him to lunch at Chick-Fil-A. He wore it when they picked up Alex. He wore it when we went to church this evening. As we were leaving church, we noticed this cardboard cutout of Pope Francis. I wanted a picture of Eric next to the Pope, and I figured that I might as well get a picture of Eric's tournament shirt that he got as part of the tournament fee. The front has a picture of "Jaws" with the caption "Jaw Jitsu". Eric decided to open his jacket up all the way so I could get a really good picture of his shirt and his medal. That boy sure is proud of his gold medal, and we are so proud of that boy!
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