On being a white belt adult testing for a taekwondo color belt with a bunch of eleven year-olds

Today was taekwondo testing at our studio where 7 of us now take classes. Yep, the 5 awesome kids pictured here, plus dh and me. My husband and I tested for our first color belt today. The testing consisted of doing our "form" of 16 moves. These moves were a series of blocks, punches, and kicks that comprise the "white belt form." My dh and I were the only white belts in our testing of adults and "high rank" students ages 7 to 12. We had to do our form in front of our instructor (5th degree black belt), two guest judges (3rd and 4th degree black belts), and the entire school with requisite parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and neighbors in attendance. (I purposely did NOT invite any other relatives, friends or neighbors to my first testing!) We also had to perform our "one steps," which is a series of moves which one would perform if attacked. We alternated playing the role of attacker and defender in front of the judges. Our only misstep of the day (I suppose I should say MY only misstep of the day since I'm the one who misstepped), was when I began attacking before receiving the appropriate signal (a sort of grunt "ay-ya!") from my dh. Evidently it wasn't the end of the world and life continued on and we survived, nay, evidently passed, our first test.

Dear Edmund, who is a 2nd degree black belt recommended, and who has attempted to test for 2nd degree decided on a previous occasion, was not able to break one of his three boards in three tries, and thus didn't pass on to 2nd degree decided today. He will attempt his entire testing, which is quite lengthy for 2nd degree black belt, again on December 20th. Third time's a charm. His good sportsmanlike conduct is commendable, and I hope to one day have as good a form as he does.

Also testing were my "Tiny Tigers," JP and DJ, who did a fine job with the under 7 year-olds. They were testing for their green decided belts. And Bernadette, did a super awesome job testing for her brown belt decided. She broke her boards on the first try!

Not testing today due to some "attitude" difficulties, was young Paul. He should have been testing for brown belt recommended, but his instructor and parents agreed that his performance has not always been the best and that it would be unfair for other kids who actually paid attention in class and worked hard. The upshot of that is that my driving schedule is going to continue to be crazy hectic as I have to drive kids to most of the 14 classes we take each week and Paul won't be able to join his sister in her classes, thus eliminating 3 of those classes.

Aren't we terrifyingly and ridiculously good-looking in our pure-white uniforms and belt?