This is me fighting in what I believe had to be my last martial arts tournament, The Battle of the Valley, somewhere between Frederick and Hagerstown, MD. That’s me on the left and I am fighting a guy named Waymon Beavers with, what was called, the DKT Force One National Karate Team. This was the fight for Black Belt middleweight championship.
I always registered to fight at tournaments, but at this point in my martial arts career I didn’t always fight. At this point in my martial arts career I was trying to transition from traditional Chinese kung-fu that I had always studied under Sifu William Bosques to the more flashy wushu with the help of an amazing coach by the name of Sifu Clarence Burris.
I was able to get a regional ranking in forms my last two years competing. However, if I had a bad day in forms, I would fight to work off my aggression. That’s what this is a picture of. I won my first two preliminary fights handily, but Wayman out pointed me for first place.
A funny side note about this day. There weren’t many people competing in non-traditional forms, so they put the men and women together. There wasn’t much real competition, but there was a woman who had studied in China. She beat me in forms and crushed me in weapons. At that point I still hadn’t mastered the aerial while she was flying through the air with great ease. So that day I decided to fight. So at my last martial arts tournament, I went home with three second place trophies.