Green Belt In The House!

Today Liam attended his first all-school belt test at Tae Kwon-Do.  Until now he has attended belt tests run on Friday afternoons for the youngest kids in the school at the lowest levels.  There's usually only 5 or 6 kids at these tests so this was our first experience with the full school test.

It was different and very fun to watch.

The table prepared for the Masters.

The Masters seated and getting testing underway.

Students lined up to begin.

As you can see there was a range of ages from 5 years old up to adult and a range of belts from white with one stripe to red with two black stripes.  I didn't count but there had to be close to 50 students testing today.

When it came time to do patterns, they separated everyone out by belt level and had each level come up and do the pattern en masse.

Getting lined up for pattern.

You'll have to forgive the video quality.  I had other kids in the way.  I did the best I could.

After all the students had done their patterns and the adult students had demonstrated their sparring combinations (which was cool; they were throwing the masters around the dojang), it was time for sparring with pads.

Spud is the one on the left.

Liam sparred twice, once with a yellow belt and once with a blue belt.  They paired the kids up based on height and one of the blue belts is a shorter Korean boy so Liam got paired with him.  I expected the kid to make mince meat of Liam because he's three belts ahead of Liam.  Liam proved me wrong.  I watched him bust out a crescent kick on the blue belt and he landed it, too.  Proud Mama.

After all of that, they lined the kids up by belt level and the masters walked through and started asking them questions.  I asked Liam what he was asked and he said he has to recite the Tenets of Tae Kwon-Do and count to 10 in Korean.  I asked him if he was able to and he responded, "That's way easy, Mom."

Then, Grandmaster Kong gathered them around to give them a talk about how he's there to teach them and give them constructive criticism.  How he's not going to pass them just to pass them and that he's like a parent, he's going to tell them right from wrong.

Grandmaster Kong imparts his wisdom.

Finally, they passed out belts, stripes, and certificates and testing was over.

Our new green belt!

It's been almost exactly one year since he started in Tae Kwon-Do.  He's come so far since he started and he's doing really, really well.  Way to go, kiddo!