Nothing better than a smile

My girl and I participated in an inner-school martial arts tournament. We both competed in kata, but I wasn't able to take part in the sparring due to some still-healing tendonitis. Bright side of that? I was able to photograph! Even better!

I really wanted to put up a pic of her with her angry eyes on. Heaven knows I have some good ones too. But in the end, this one lucky moment is the winner. I think she and her opponent had just psyched each other out with their simultaneous attacks, stalling each other at the same time as they both switched to defensive postures (honestly I don't recall for sure what had happened, but it seems plausible to me) and in that fleeting moment the game face was dropped and her true personality appeared. I love it.

I'm sure the fact that the opponent is a classmate of ours helped.

In the end, she and I left with a 3rd and 2nd place medal for kata (respectively) and she has a 2nd place trophy for sparring. Not bad for our first tournament, I'm so proud of her.

Of course, the fact that there were only 3 of us in our division (novice, adult) for kata, and only 2 for sparring (her and her opponent) meant that we were guaranteed shiny prizes, but I'm not letting that diminish the mental and physical achievement!