Yellow Belt!

Last night, Gianni and I went to taekwondo, and we had our belt tests. Master Hwang sat down in a chair in front of us, and we performed il jang or the first chapter poomsae. We also had to do easy no-contact sparring with a partner. There are certain steps you do. It's not just free-form sparring. We did really well, and Gianni and I both got our yellow belts! I'm so happy not to have a white belt anymore. It's nice to have at least some colored belt. After taking our test and passing, Master Hwang ties the new belt around you and shakes your hand and stuff. It's very cute and nice. The standards for passing the test to get yellow belt aren't very high because everyone is new at that stage, but even still, it's nice! After the test, Master Hwang taught us the proper technique for il jang--more than just the basics. It's good to know. Then, we practiced the other beginner poomsae, chongi, as it is used in self defense. All the moves in taekwondo can be used as self defense, but it's hard to think about that when you are performing the poomsae as a set of steps, almost like a dance. So he wanted to get us thinking about the moves as actual blocking and kicks and punches. It was interesting.

This is the first time we've seen Master Hwang since I got a text message completely in Korean last week from him. I discerned from the 3.6kg that his new daughter had been born. She's adorable! They are waiting for Master Hwang's father to give her a name. In Korea, the grandfather on the father's side gives the children names. This got us in a whole discussion about name meanings with kids in the class. One boy's first name means "talking" and his family name means "no," so his name means "no talking!" LOL! Good name.