Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Yellow or still white?

Tomorrow we find out if Fellan passed his belt test for Tae Kwon Do. The test was this past Friday night and judging from the number of people who had signed up for the potluck afterwards, I figured we'd be done in about 30 minutes.

That was not the case. There were probably 40 kids who tested for their belts! And this is not a short process. First, each group had to show their kicking techniques. Red tip belts, red belts, blue belts, green belts, orange belts, yellow belts, white belts. Then each group had to show their form. Red tip belts, red belts, blue belts, green belts, orange belts, yellow belts, white belts. Then they each had to show their sparring techniques. Red tip belts... etc. We were there for 2.5 hours!

And finally, they got to the board breaking technique. In order to progress from belt to belt, the student must break a board. To say that we were a little apprehensive about Fellan's ability to do such a thing is an understatement.

And Fellan was pretty nervous, too.

Luckily, they start with all the higher level belts for this, too, and work their way down, so we had seen several broken boards before it came time for Fellan's group to go. Still, I was anxious to get it over with.

Apparently, however, I had nothing to fear. Fellan got up, did his practice kicks, lined it up, and *whack!* the board was split in two. It was so cool. Fellan couldn't have been more proud.

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