YES!!!!

Success! Testing for red belt is a pretty big deal in TKD. One of the requirements is that you cannot test in your own dojang for this level belt. So the Randolph students testing for red belt and red stripe traveled to Burlington's dojang for our testing last night. Testing for red belt were me (Gerry), Mike and Sonja. Ramsey tested for red stripe. Although there were plenty of friendly faces there . . .including the 4 black belts from our dojang, Master Tom Chase, Master Peter Chase (above), Miss Chase (our fabulous babysitter) and Miss Buckholts (Sonja's daughter! --- see way above) . . .There was also a formidable line-up of black belts there to help conduct the testing, to sit on the judging panel and to help out with the testing!Red belt is one step below black belt and to symbolize the difference between black belt and red belt, red belts are required to do push ups ALL THE TIME, especially if any other colored belt student does something wrong. For example, the yellow belts testing last night forgot to kiyyap on their turns, and so as punishment, all red belts had to do push-ups whenever the same mistake was made, which was a lot! Actually, its kind of fun! Here we are doing push-ups because the lower rank students didn't line up correctly. We had to keep doing push-ups until everyone was lined up right.

The testing lasted over an hour with many requirements, including freekicking (2 above) and sparring (above).


We also had to break boards. All the Randolph students testing for red belt did the "standard Randolph red belt testing break series", which is a standing side kick, followed by a stepping, turning back kick, a step behind side kick (2 boards) and a front elbow strike.
You can see Mike's breaking here and Sonja's here.
I broke my boards on my series, but unfortunately, kicked Master White's fingers hard on one attempt and then kicked Ms. Essig's fingers on the next attempt. OUCH! I am SO sorry about that.In the end, we all passed our testing! We celebrated with a meal at Al's French Fries in South Burlington!

One of the requirements of red belts is that they kneel any time they take off their belt or put it on. Here I am having my red belt tied on me by Master Tom Chase.

CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE WHO TESTED!