Taekwondo is strictly a club sport, but at a national competition held at Brown University from March 21-22, there was no shortage of fierce competition. Tufts was right in the middle of it, sending 13 competitors to the 34th National Collegiate Taekwondo Association (NCTA) Championships, with eight of them coming away with medals.
The event features over 350 competitors from over 80 schools, reaching as far as Stanford and UC Berkeley, which are known for their martial arts programs.
Gold medalists in sparring included senior blue belt Aaron Schumacher, freshman green belt Hyomi Carty and junior yellow belt Jonathan Loh. They won the first gold medals at Nationals for any Tufts martial artist. Groups were broken up by weight class and belt type, from white/yellow to green/blue to red and black.
"I didn't expect that I'd do this well," Loh said. "It was a very pleasant surprise. I landed my first headshot ever in a tournament.
"The final was intense," he continued. "My opponent was a lot better than the guys I faced in the early rounds, but the match was cut short because he sustained an injury. If I had the chance, I'd like to go against him again. I'd like to know how well I would've fared."
Schumacher also represented the Jumbos well, demolishing most of his opponents en route to his top finish.
"Schumacher completely didn't let anybody stand in his way," coach Michael Harb said. "There was only one match where they didn't need the mercy rule. He won 7-0, 5-0, 8-0, 7-3, so he completely outclassed four opponents ... As a whole, I was more than satisfied."
While the team was well-prepared going in, the team managed to exceed its own expectations.
"Coach Harb was actually shell-shocked," Schumacher said. "He was really speechless. When any one of us won a gold or silver or bronze, none of us were surprised because we had confidence going in, but overall as a team, we were absolutely surprised."
The rules for color belt sparring include three one-minute rounds, with one point being scored for body blows and two for headshots. The first to 12 or a seven-point margin takes the match.
"I was expecting the competition to be pretty tough, but I'd trained hard and put in my best effort," said Carty, who has been practicing taekwondo for four years. "The coaches trained us pretty well, and I ended up doing really well.
"I sparred in three different matches and won two by seven-point gaps," Carty continued. "The third was pretty intense. It was the finals, so [my opponent] was also very good, and we were fighting up until it was 11-11, and it was about to go into overtime ... so whoever scored the next point was going to win. I ended up getting a kick in the head on her."
Tufts earned four other sparring medals, including silvers from sophomore yellow belt Noriko Aizawa and freshman white belt Marcell Babai, who both lost in the finals by a single point.
"Noriko Aizawa is a yellow belt, so she's a beginner," Harb said. "She weighs maybe 90 pounds, and the little thing fought in the thin-weight/flyweight competition with girls a head bigger than her. And she fought like nobody's business. She did not back down from of any of her competitors and went all the way to the finals, narrowly losing 7-6. But that was only because she was competing immediately after the semifinals. The poor thing was exhausted."
Tufts also won three medals in form for the color belts. Form is a set sequence of moves judged on accuracy and the power of the techniques. The art form and beauty of moves contrast the other side of sparring, according to Harb. Junior blue belt Matthew Davenport took home the lone gold, while Aizawa and sophomore red belt Peter Yeh came away with their second silver and bronze medals of the day, respectively.
"Every year we get a couple new incoming freshmen who are black belts, but the core of the team is definitely the lower belts," Schumacher said. "It's a sustainable thing you can really see grow over time. Matt Davenport came in ... as a bumbling oaf. Now he's better than a lot of other people and is very light on his feet. He's 10 times more flexible than I am, but I was 10 times less when he came in."
Thanks to four total color belt gold medals, the Jumbos ranked third as a team, trailing only MIT and Brown, who both brought over 40 people to the competition.
"In all the other tournaments we go to, you'll have lower belts competing against upper belts," Schumacher said. "But the way the belts are divided at Regionals is not the same way as Nationals. When you're fighting higher belts, you'll inevitably get better, since you're fighting people better than you are. Having that success against them gives me confidence."
"We expected to do well on an individual level, since we face good competition in tournaments, but I was surprised we did so well as a team since we sent so few people," he continued. "I was pretty confident because we have a lot of experience in these other tournaments, and I know I'm well coached because Coach Harb is one of the best in the country. He always pushes me and tells us to keep working harder, so a lot of our success can be attributed to him."
Tufts did not have the same success in the black belt competition, as Augustine Pyo (LA '08) and senior Austin Worth were eliminated in the quarterfinals, though black belt medical student Anastasia Kazimirova earned a bronze in both form and sparring. There was greater competition in the black belt fields, as only the more dedicated martial artists were likely to travel from around the country.
Tufts only sent two team members to Nationals in Texas last year, but the proximity of Brown allowed for a greater turnout.
"It was at Brown, so our travel costs were down, and [the Tufts Community Union Senate] allocated us funds for the competition and travel expenses, which really helped," Harb said.
Overall, the Nationals experience gave the team a chance to see how it measured up against competitors outside of its league.
"We were stoked," Harb said. "We had a bunch of students come down with us and just help support and cheer the rest of them, which made a big difference. Some people gave up their spring break. Austin Worth came back early so he could compete. Everyone gained experience. We've had success in our league, but now we saw how we can fare against schools around the country, and we really took it to them. It's a testament to the program we've been running."
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8 medals for Taekwondo player
