2022 ITF World Championships recap
It’s been 6 weeks since the 2022 ITF World Championship tournament and I’m finally posting about it here. It was a big 3-day event with plenty of ups and downs. I already wish I could go back.
The tournament was July 29-31, 2022. I competed in all 8 events – 4 individual (patterns, sparring, power breaking & specialty breaking) and 4 team (same categories, but on a team of 7 dedicated members). I won bronze in individual patterns and power breaking, gold in men’s team patterns and power breaking, and silver in men’s team specialty breaking.
*For those unfamiliar, patterns (forms, pumse, etc.) is a set of movements performed solo against another competitor. Sparring is fighting. Power breaking is how many boards can you break with specific techniques (there are 5 for adult men: side kick, turn kick, reverse turn kick, knife hand and punch). Specialty breaking is how high or far can you jump and break a board (also 5 techniques for adult men: jump high kick, jump turn kick, jump reverse turn kick, flying side kick and 360 back kick).
What an insane ride this World Championships was. This one was special - the training, the camaraderie, the sweat and tears, all hit different this time – it was my last World Championships as an adult, I’ll age into the Senior division by next time. Though I didn’t get the results I wanted this time, I’m getting closer to my goal. I can’t rewind and try again, but I can move forward and continue honing.
Personal medal count: 5. I won bronze individual patterns and bronze power breaking. My first individual patterns medal in 12 years and my first time ever on the podium for power breaking. USA also won 2nd place overall country!
The USA Men’s Team won gold team patterns, gold power breaking and silver specialty breaking. We immortalized ourselves in US history as the first men’s team to win a gold medal in team patterns. Thank you Federico M. Vindigni David Jue Timothy Thibodeaux, MS, Cody, Alex and Conor for the honor of leading you guys on those mats, with a busted body but together with all the heart in the world. And there are more names on those medals than just the 7 of us that trained together and the 5 that competed in the ring this time. It didn’t happen just in the past few months. We stand on the work of the past 8 years together with teammates, coaches, instructors and the brothers we’ve competed against around the world.
To the Argentina Men’s Team: every time we lost to you, it forced us to work harder. Thank you for making us a better, closer team. I sincerely hope we keep competing together far into the future 🤝
And the Italian Men’s Team: it was a privilege to compete against you all in the patterns final. Though we won that one, you got us back in sparring 👊
It has been a true honor watching the progress of my USA teammates over the course of my adult competition career. You’ve all come so far. I’m especially proud of our newer teammates that grew immensely since our Qualifier in March. Keep training and growing and I’ll see you at the next one 👊