Photojournalism - Before the Night, with their Might, the Children FIght

                Sweat in the palms of their hands, smiles on their faces, all of them friends preparing to battle one another. With their hearts racing, eager to begin, young martial art students have been training to fight or spar against each other to win a trophy.

            Every month, there is an in-school sparring tournament at the West Shore Academy of Martial Arts. Children compete with each other because it helps build confidence in them.

               The tournament starts with a traditional bow in which shows respect for the American and Korean flags and the instructor teaching the class. Student will then put on all their equipment including gloves, footgear, headgear, mouthpiece, and for the boys, cups. Every student has to fight at least three matches trying to score as many points as possible. 

At the West Shore Academy of Martial Arts, kids are doing a traditional bow in to begin their  sparring tournament.

             Master Vergara lines up the students so they are organized in three different size groups: Lightweight, Middleweight, and Heavyweight. he does this so the tournament will be more fair for the short kids versus the taller ones. Because there are three divisions, that also means three winners, and the winner of the tournament wins a trophy.

To secure the trophy, the competitors fight to achieve victory by scoring more points than their competitors.

Kicking at his opponent, Ridley Sherman (5) laughs throughout his match against Andrew Hockenberry (11).

           

                In the picture above, young Ridley is fighting his heart out, trying his best to get all three points. He is a five year old who is very interested in martial arts. According to Heather Sherman (Ridley's mother), he has been training for 13 months. At home, he also practices with his younger brother Jasper (2). Heather says, "He and Ridley practice together all the time" in reference to Jasper. After every class Jasper watches, he shakes Master Vergara's hand as if he were his student. Ridley improves each week, and his fighting shows it. 

                There were thirteen kids, at least twenty-one matches occurred that night. While the children waited to be put up against one another, they watched other matches.

In complete focus, Cierra Hower (9) watches her competitors to learn how they fight and defend.

              After all the fighting, the scores are being tallied up to find out who won in each division. While the scores are being added up, the students do continuous fighting against each person to test their skill levels against different weight groups and different skill levels.

Master Vergara gives Pablo (9) and Cleo Yatsko (7) tips and advice on how to fight with more precision to help them fight better.

               After the scores were added up, everybody focusing on the tournament (meaning kids and their parents), were ready to hear the winners of this tournament. While the children knee down on the ground, they are listening very carefully. The winners were announced. In the light weight division, Cleo Yatsko (7) won. In the middle weight, the winner was Josh Peterson (10), and in the heavy weight Alexa Rameirez (12) was the winner.

Josh Peterson (10) is ecstatic about being the middle weight champion!