First Taekwondo Tournament, First Poetry Published

Went to our first regional taekwondo tournament yesterday and it was a learning experience. First of all it's a real clusterfuck the way the thing is run but they have their rules and regulations. It started off with the tiny tigers competing, these are the 5 year olds and such. They start right off with them so that their parents can watch if the parents happen to be competing. The good news is , no matter how bad or wrong one does, one does get some good positive recognition for the individual effort put forth. This is the only sport I know of which does this. My daughter Stephanie got a medal for doing her form. I'm proud of my little girl, she did as well as a 5 year old can be expected to do. I really should work with her more.
The juniors performed next, these were my other two daughters, Victoria and Judith. Victoria wears braces on her teeth but doesn't have a mouth guard from her orthodontist so she could only compete in forms this time. She placed fourth. Judith competed in forms and sparring. Some of those girls really go at it and are just plain fucking deadly. God help the poor stupid son of a bitch who tries to lay an unwanted hand on some of these girls. I think they spar more hard and with more gusto than adults. Maybe it's because their just children and don't quite know their own strength yet? My Judith was eliminated in the first round, she just didn't have the gusto and passion the other kid did. Neither did I when my competition came up, more on that later. Judith also competed in forms but it seems to me she has an apethetic approach to forms. I'm still a student myself so I am not the expert to make that assessment. Both Victoria and Judith did get medals for placing fourth in forms.
Now about my performance, I competed in forms and sparring. I did my form but brain farted half way through it, still I finished my routine but didn't place against the other four men competing in my age group. Actually, I tied with one of the other guys for third place but he won in the tie breaker. I placed third in sparring against a 250lb man from Lake Charles, LA. who competed at world tournament as an orange belt. I'm 215lbs and maybe a little taller but this guy has technique which I lack and he knocked me down twice. He didn't have speed so much as he did have power. I think a lot of my problems stem from my lacking a competitve nature and not practicing as I should have or training as hard as I should have. I'm 38 years old and just now starting to compete in any sort of sport, some of these guys have been at this since they were children and have that wealth of experience to bring to this sport.
My wife Dana competed in forms and sparring and didn't come home with any medals but she had the best time and was the most excited all around. She sparred against one woman who was probably a first time sparrer as she was. Dana weighs 200 plus lbs and doesn't have speed but she does have power, this I know. The other girl was a lot lighter and had speed and a more competitive nature. Dana scored one point and was as giddy as a school girl, the other woman scored five points and won the match and was quietly excited compared to Dana.
Now about my first poem published. It's my poem called "Now" and it's part of an anthology titled "Twilight Musings". I still havn't seen it in any bookstores but I'll keep my eye out. It's on the first page, I paid fifty dollars for this 224 page volume put out by the International Library of Poetry. I'm convinced it's all a sham, I'm not planning on buying another volume from them in the future. I thought I was going to have more published than just this one poem. I have over 20 poems published on their web site, www.poetry.com. All of them have this little note about being published in an upcoming volume and all are copyrighted as my work. No table of contents, no index of authors or first lines; just a nicely bound hard back with my poem on the very first page. If this isn't bullshit I don't know what is.
Another thing about this web site, more than once I've submitted a poem and then returned to the website to find it gone as if I had never submitted the work in the first place. Maybe they didn't like it? I don't expect everyone to like everything I write, but I havn't had this problem with my poetry on www.blogger.com. In fact, everything I've put out on my blog, my poetry, or my haiku is all there on blogger.com. No problems, no editor telling me it contains explicit or unwanted wording or anything. Just pure artistic expression. Too bad I can't have my blogs or their contents automatically copyrighted like I do on poetry.com.