Yellow Belt

After a very intense two-hour test, Grace earned her yellow belt last night.  She had an excited cheering section:

And, boy, did she ever earn that belt!  She definitely got nervous, but she impressed us all by how well she continued trying and stayed focused the whole time.  The test was certainly harder than I thought it would be.  There was a "movement" section where she had to show that she had mastered white belt material, and then there was a "stamina" section, which quite frankly felt like just enduring the two hours was enough, but they also ran for four minutes straight, held the push-up position for a minute, and other such torture.  There were two kids (including Grace) testing for their yellow, two testing for orange, and three testing for purple, so lots going on.  She did GREAT.  We are very, very proud of her--but more importantly, Grace is very proud of herself.  She still just loves MP and can't wait to start learning yellow belt material.

She will be a yellow belt for a while now.   While she needed to attend 13 classes in order to test for a yellow belt, she will need to attend 26 classes to test for the orange belt.  There is also quite a bit more material.  And, she will be able to start sparring!  Wow.  She's excited and nervous to do that...  

After having taken off their current belts and getting ready for the belt ceremony:

Shaking hands with Mas Pat, her favorite teacher who taught her intro class:

Cutting her yellow belt with a machete-like Indonesian fighting knife (very cool):

The new yellow belt:  

We then headed out for some well-deserved dessert with Peter (who was a champ for making it through that big test!), Jenn, and Matt.  Grace got a strawberry tart (and shared some of my malt).  It was a good ending to a big night.  

Then, she woke up and played soccer today...  Whew!