Testing for High yellow belt

Nicole tested for her High yellow belt on April 10th. There are several aspects of the testing, and some depend on your degree of belt.

The students that were testing.

Nicole and Ethan waiting their turn to do their form.

Each belt degree has a form, or a series of movements. Both Ethan and Nicole are doing their low yellow belt form. They have been doing the junior form, which is shorter and not as complex as the adult form.

Next they have to perform their one steps. One steps are short movements designed to teach you combinations used in contact sparing. One steps are considered "no-contact" sparing. There are three seperate one steps and each student takes a turn performing their one step while the other acts as the defender. Here Ethan and Nicole judge their distance.

Ethan performs step one while Nicole defends.

Nicole's turn.

From low yellow belt up the students get to do contact sparing. In tournaments you are awarded points for body contact (1pt) and head (2pt). You don't actually have to make contact to the head, you just have to be close to get the points. At testing, sparing is just for exhibition to show "their stuff".

Ethan is punching Nicole in the face, which is a no-no, but not his fault -- his eyes are closed!

Nicole is a scrapler and holds her own in the ring. She loves to spar!

All done sparing, and taking their gear off.

The final part of testing is breaking boards. Although Nicole has broke boards twice in class, students don't break boards in testing until they are a low green belt. Technically, if a student goes according to plan they should be testing for a new belt about every two months. Nicole only took a month this last time, so Master Rhodes is going to start having her do the adult form in the hopes she won't be bored (which she has no trouble expressing!) and to slow down her advancement. At the rate she's going she should be a black belt by the time she's 8 or 8-1/2. Since I have watched her progress through this, and seen how much fun she's having I have decided to join TKD too. I started last week and did my first bout of sparing on Thursday. It was fun! and a great workout!