In which Duchess competes in a tournament, and photos are taken.

Today Duchess competed in her first martial arts tournament. She is getting over a stomach virus AND battling a cold, and woke me up at 6:30 this morning weeping about the tournament; she didn't want to do the fighting. She was signed up (she paid most of the tournament fee out of her own money) for both "forms" and "fighting" and she was having a crisis of confidence. She wailed "What if somebody hits me in the stomach?!"

Duchess has more confidence in her form, which is a memorized series of movements, than in fighting, of which she hasn't had a lot of experience. Her ability to focus has served her well with forms, and she was feeling pretty good about it.

She came in third out of four kids in her group, which was somewhat demoralizing for her, but she held up pretty well. 

For fighting, they wear some protective gear that has the weird effect of making Duchess hunch over like a turtle. "A ninja turtle!" she chortled when I told her that.

Duchess, unsurprisingly, specializes in defense. She's very good at paying attention to her opponent and fending off blows. But over the course of five fights, she got better and better, she maintained her focus throughout every fight, she started taking the offense more often, and in the end, she won her group. 

This is what she looked like when she realized she had won (by a very narrow margin), beating a kid who had beaten her once that day, and intimidated her in class for several weeks. She was pretty pleased. You know, for a ninja turtle.