Green Belt Testing

I almost forgot that today is Deb and Jeff's anniversary! Happy anniversary to you guys!!!

Today was testing day for the boys. They were going for their low green belts this time. It's easy to see that I'm making friends within the school as Hannah and I were not sitting alone this time. I love that.

As always, first up were the white belts. There were a ton of them this testing period. Probably 3 or 4 waves tested, including three from our school. There is a possibility that next testing, Hannah will be in there.

After white belts, the yellows went and after yellow is orange, and time for the boys. They all did a great job on their form and one-steps. They then headed to the back to get padded up for sparring. Mike was up first and looked great. I had several people tell me that they had never seen him spar so well.

Then, it was Jacob and Daniel's turn. They do their best to match the kids up with height and age, and this time was no exception. Grandmaster Lee told the kids that there is no crying in Tae Kwon Do (he was joking) and we all thought that it was funny when the testing instructor actually told them, "no crying." They tell the boys to begin and both boys coume out kicking. Since the tournament, Jacob has a lot more confidence sparring and Daniel's love of it has been reinforced. All was going well until the end when Jacob took a kick to the stomach that had him upset. He held it in until he walked off, though. When they called time, Daniel could be heard saying, "ohhh," since he didn't want it to end. He's so funny.

We found out on Thursday that once you hit low blue, you have to start breaking boards as part of testing. That means the boys should be breaking boards at testing in April. Since this is quite an accomplishment for anyone, especially the kids, we decided to stay to shouw our support for our school. Mia, Peter, Quinn and Alex, all students in the boys' class, had to break a 1 inch board with a kick. The question came up that, "what if they can't?" That question was answered this afternoon. they give the kids about 7 tries to break the 1 inch board before they switch them to a 1/2 inch board. About 1/4 of the kids could break the 1 inch board and the rest had to use the 1/2 inch one.

Then, we watched as the brown and black belts took the floor. A first degree black belt, Stephen, from our school was going for his second degree and it was crazy what all they had him do. He had to break a lot of stuff. He had to break 2 inches of wood with his left hand, than another 2 inches with his right hand. Then two inches with each foot. On the second foot, Stephen felt a snap in his ankle and told Mike that he thought he broke his ankle...again (he had a fracture a couple of months ago). He didn't want anyone knowing because they would not have let him continue with testing. Of course, gossip at our school spreads like wildfire and by the time Stephen had to do his form, we were all on pins and needles watching the poor guy's ankle. He really sucked it up because he made it through his form, sparring and 3-steps (once you hit blue belt, you have 3-steps and not 1-step sparring). Amazing. Crazy and stupid, but amazing.

After testing, a group of us headed over to Arby's for a late lunch/early dinner. The kids had a blast playing with their friends as we basically took over the restaurant. Thankfully, it was pretty empty.

It was a long day, but it was fun and hopefully in a week, the boys will have their new, low green belts.