Deputy Black Belts!

Jared and Jacie tested for their Deputy Black belt on August 24th. They did great! This belt level is a really big deal and we are very proud of both of them!

Quick Tae Kwon Do (TKD) lesson: Deputy Black Belt is the rank immediately before Black Belt. They are required to be Deputy Black Belts for at least 6 months and to have  a certain amount of leadership classes(where they help lead a lower belt class once a week-they started doing this as red belts) before they can test for their black belts.

(The quality of these videos is really not very good but it's the best we can do with the technology we have...hey, it's better than nothin', right? The video clips all start and end rather abruptly and you can ingnore the list of "related videos" that pops up after the clip is done playing because they aren't from us, they are just other videos on You Tube.)

Okay let's get this started:

The first part of the test is their "Poomse" (pronounced: poom-say) (or Form). Each higher belt rank has a more difficult poomse with more steps. They are always required to first do the previous belt test poomse before they are tested on the current poomse. You'll see both of the kids do both of the poomses here:

The second part of the test is "One Step Self Defense". They have 6 "One Steps" they perform against an "attacker" This would be a good time to tell you that ALEX was the camera operator, not me ;)

The next part of the test is sparring. This is not just a free for all fight-fest. They must do certain combinations and number of techniques, and do them properly, to get a point. Here Jared spars Drew:

When you spar you are always, always, matched up with someone close to your size, skill and belt rank. You see how Jared and Drew are pretty much the same size and it looked like a pretty even match. The same thing is true for Jacie and her sparring opponent...

Well okay it's not really the same thing with Jacie but there aren't any other tiny children her level to spar against so she almost always spars an instructor. It's a shame they don't enjoy Jacie at this school ;)

Next is board breaking. This is done at every belt level with progressively harder breaking techniques required. Sometimes it takes more than one try, no biggie

And sometimes it only takes one try!

The last part of this test is endurance. This only done at the higher belt levels. They have to do these kicks and follow it up very quickly with their first two forms they learned over 2 years ago:

Here they are receiving their new deputy black belts from Dr. King (she is in the blue) and Master King!

Comments

[Jody]

Way to go, Jared and Jacie! I'm very impressed...I've never taken a Tae Kwon Do class in my life but I do know the amount of concentration, composure and strength it requires to achieve any of the belt levels. You all did fantastic in your testing for the Deputy Black belt....way to go, Jared and Jacie!!! Hugs, Miss Jody

[Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Chris and Grace]

Woohoo!!!! Good job kids! Remind me not to pick on you :)

Great job you did too Cathy....I guess you stayed busy all weekend on this. It worked great....it is fast and the pictures are very clear. I thought you had it on fast forward when they were doing the endurance test but Grandpa said not so.

Hope everyone made it home ok. Love to all....Grandma

[Olive]

Great work.