The Phoenix North American Championships was honored to host Grand Master Nestor Galarraga, on March 18, 2023, in Houston, Texas.  The event provided 5 simultaneous Facebook livestreams which were rebroadcast to ITF Sport TV.  It was a great success.  

Athletes from Argentina, Canada, Kyrgyzstan, and the United States had excellent competition.  The United States was represented by competitors from Alaska, California, Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Texas.  

Competitors from white belt (10th gup) through 7th Dan black belt competed.  The event included black belt team patterns, as well as an Adaptive Taekwon-Do pattern and sparring competition.  There were pattern and sparring divisions for all color belts and black belts.  

Power breaking separated individuals by gender but the males and females competed using all the same breaks.  Color belt power breaking included side kick, knife hand, and turn kick.  The black belt power breaking included side kick, turn kick, reverse turn kick, knife hand, and punch.  In the specialty breaking males and females were separated by gender but again competed using all the same breaks.  The color belts did only flying high kick.  Black belts did flying high kick, flying turn kick, flying 180 reverse turn kick, 360 midair back kick and long flying side kick.   

We are looking forward to the tournament growing and to hosting the America Cup March 16, 2024.