Kids are now High Blue Belts

[amilyn]

Last night was their TKD belt tests to go from blue belt to high blue belt. iingaartist and she recorded their board breaking

Comments

[ayiana]

Boy, does this bring back memories. Please, give them both my congratulations on a job well done! And not to worry about the clean/sharp thing. It'll come. Believe me. :)

[amilyn]

That is reassuring. The instructors and Master Lee keep saying "It'll come," but I have seen so much sloppiness and...I fret.

But they are SO much more physically competent than they'd be without the past two years of TKD, so I'm thrilled. ...It WOULD be nice if they could figure out correct jumping jacks, though...

[readthesubtext]

Aw, I'm getting a pang of nostalgia now! I miss TKD so much. Congratulations to your kids - they looked great up there. There were plenty of adults who couldn't break boards after numerous attempts in my class (it's technique more than power), and some of the girls took a ridiculous number of sessions to even work up the courage to have a go, so all credit to Ben and Elf. The kicks they were performing (roundhouse and axe) are quite complicated compared to the standard front snap/side kicks, too, so they did really well! I love Elf's enthusiastic kiyap, too! :)

[amilyn]

It's interesting how different our dojangs are! We do ALL the kicks from the first weeks on. I find side kicks are the hardest, personally, in terms of balance.

And everyone at our dojang has to do board breaking (various moves) at every belt test.

And re: kiyap...they are LOUD.

[readthesubtext]

I was with GTUK and our instructors were completely anal about perfecting technique - you mastered the basics before you were permitted to try anything more elaborate and although board breaking was incorporated into gradings for us adults, it wasn't compulsory until you got to the higher belts, and people of green belt and below could still pass if they didn't complete that component. Lower belts only learnt side kicks, front snap kicks, back kicks and roundhouse kicks. Higher belts moved on to crescent/axe/scissor/butterfly etc. Most of the emphasis went on set/free sparring (with the appropriate gear) and learning patterns. I would've definitely liked to try my hand at everything from the outset, but our first few sessions were spent learning all of the stances, punching thin air and making sure to rotate our fists before impact, and then we went over saju jurugi countless times. It got to be a little repetitive after a while, but thankfully they mixed it up a bit with a few games to text our reflexes and I moved up the ranks

[amilyn]

Our dojang is WTF and uses this approximate belt sequence but with both purple and blue, as well as brown between blue and red. Our dojang has a step between each belt: purple, high purple, blue, high blue, brown, high brown, red, high red, red-black (half and half each color rather than a stripe down the middle of the belt

[stars_like_dust]

They are doing so well! The instructors seem so awesome and supportive. :)

[amilyn]

We have an AWESOME dojang with WONDERFUL instructors. It's why we stayed even though it was expensive.

[amilyn]

*beam*

[dotfic]

Whoa, they are amazing! \o/

[amilyn]

I sure think so!