About 1-1/2 years ago, my daughter decided she thought martial arts sounded interesting, so I started taking her with me. Kinda cool to have something like that we can do together.

Then Covid hit. And we've had over a year of social-distanced classes, drills done without partners, and rank testings and tournaments conducted via zoom (ugh). Last weekend was our first opportunity to go to a small, regional tournament.

This was literally her first ever competitive event in her life (age 16). Athletic, academic, recreational...she has never been to a true competition before where you are pitted against someone else's skills.

Kid pretty much rocked it. Got a silver medal in sparring, even though she got lumped into the women's division due to a lack of entrants at her rank and age.

Pretty damned proud of her first real competition.

And just so I don't get branded as a parent who only cares when their kids excel in sports, she's also been a straight A student with some mindblowing talent in art as well that I am continually impressed by. It's just particularly cool that she got interested in the martial arts, which have been a lifelong passion of mine, and has gotten pretty darned good at it too.