Big boy belt

Today's usual karate class was replaced with testing.  On Tuesday I was informed/warned that the test takes about 2 1/2 hours because of the different ranks of students, all taking part.  I brought snacks, a novel, and my camera.  Good thing, because I needed all three as the morning wore on.

We arrive at 9:00am and Selim starts stretching with his friends.

Everybody bowed in and then they started doing upper body technique --punches, blocks, chops, combinations, etc.  First up the orange belts, then the pee-wees, yellow and whites, followed by greens, then the browns and red.  Selim was in the second group.

Followed by waiting while the upper belt colors go through their punches. 

Next up are the kicks.

Followed by more waiting.  Then the forms -- a series of moves strung together.  Kind of like a dance routine, but staccato and with punching.  Watching the brown and red belts move through a series of forms was really cool.  I could hear the force of their punches by how their uniforms snapped with the movement.  I've been thinking about joining when Selim moves up to the 7 - adult class and this made me want to do it.

Followed by more waiting.  Then tumbling.

More waiting.  Then self-defense moves. 

And more waiting...

And then board braking.  When some of the bigger people were breaking the boards, it took more than one person to absorb the shock of the break.

Finally, new belt color!  Ms. Hebert gets his old belt off and Master Rivera ties on the new.

At 1:45, four hour and 45 minutes later, we were walking out, proud and hungry.