Thursday at Worlds

Check out today's pictures here . In order to see the pictures better, either click the "Start Slideshow" link or click on the individual pictures.

This morning we played tourists, including my traditional stop at Cafe du Monde for cafe au lait and beignets. Ah...

Our first competition event was this afternoon: continuous sparring. This event is similar to point sparring, except that no breaks are called after points are scored. Instead, the fighters keep sparring, while the refs tally the points. At the end of two rounds, the winner is the competitor with the most combined points.

Matt Hickman was competing in this event for the first time, and it was only his second time fighting in the adult black belt division. This makes his accomplishment all the more remarkable. He is now the newest reigning adult men's continuous sparring World Champion. Although his division was small, this is still an impressive victory. The fighting was excellent, despite what the pictures on our website might indicate!

It is very likely that his younger sister, Sarah, might deserve some credit for inspiring him. She beat her only opponent to take the championship in her division. Although I didn't get to see her fight, I heard that she did great.

We were also pleased as punch (haha...punch...get it?) with Philip Wahl. He faced one of the biggest divisions, but he was such a scrappy fighter that most of them were no match for him. He battled his way to an impressive 2nd place!

Isaac Prewett fought some rather scary looking guys. I only got to bits and pieces of his fights, because I was judging in another ring, but things looked quite fierce and intimidating in his division. I was quite pleased with his 2nd place.

This was not quite the night for Benjamin Prewett and Michael Hickman. Michael bravely faced off with a much larger opponent, and took quite a beating. We're hoping both of them will have a better time with point sparring on Saturday.