Trinity Taekwon-do athletes are back in the spotlight this week but this time at the Lil Kicker level.

Cameron Macdonald, Owner/Instructor from Trinity Taekwon-do says it was great to attend the competition in Crossfield last weekend that is speciafically geared for younger athletes.

Working in partnership with clubs from Crossfield and Airdrie, Macdonald shares the one-day tournament is for athletes ages 4 to 7 years old who compete in modified events. "This tournament has become an annual event for us. We invite them to our small in-house tournament every year and so they do the same for this Shadow Warrior tournament (some kid programs are called Shadow Warriors and some are called Lil Kickers).

Myka Barvir doing a pattern.

Although Macdonald shares he usually has a greater showing of athletes, he was extremely proud of the six Lil Kickers that competed. "We normally see quite a few more competitors going, we only had six this year where normally we see upwards fifteen or twenty and I am not sure why that was. Those six did great; they compete in a kind of scaled down version of both the patterns and sparring and it's done to teach them the concept without actually making them full out spar or memorize a full pattern."

While Coach Macdonald has never placed emphasis on medalling, he shares all six returned home with hardware. "At this specific tournament, they give gold, silver, and bronze out to the three medalists and then everyone who basically didn't win a medal gets what's called a 'victory medal' and all of our six won an actual gold, silver, or bronze medal which was really cool."

Ryker Jakel competing in his inaugural tournament.

Macdonald says although it would have been great to have more classmates attend the tournament, it was a great experience for the attending athletes. "Most big tournaments don't have divisions for this young. Our own Trinity tournament that we'll be hosting in the New Year is one where we have all divisions but any of the major tournaments for our organization typically don't even have divisions for this age. I think it's necessary to give them some exposure and some find it super fun whether they are keen to compete or not."

Lastly, Macdonald wanted to give a big shout out to his four very dedicated instructors who run the Lil Kicker program in Cochrane and Water Valley. "They are four awesome individuals and they were all at that tournament. Even though there were only six students, all four instructors were there to encourage these kids, cheer them on, help them and guide them. I think that was super special for them and awesome for me to see as well. They volunteered their time to go to be part of these kids experience."

Trinity athletes will continue to train and sharpen their skills before competing in their next tournament slated for the New Year.