Third Degree Belt

Tonight was the night!  It was actually a pretty big day today, but we'll start with tonight, because this was a night that was about four years in the making.  The ol' stat that's thrown around is this:  out of all martial arts students, only about 1 in 10,000 will make it to a third degree belt status.  Tonight, four students earned that status, and keep in mind it takes a few years to get to third degree from second, so there were four different paths here and they all converged on this one night.  Maddie got her second degree belt back in May of 2023, and has been steadily marching forward ever since.  It's not about the goal though - it's about the journey.  And tonight for four students, that journey had a great milestone moment:

This is the usual group picture, and for testing, tonight was the usual sort of night - for the most part.  The students gathered, heard announcements, and then were paired off for sparring.  Maddie was on the opposite side of the room tonight for that, but we could see her doing well against some lower experienced students there, helping them along really.  After sparring came the board breaking, and that's where things got fun.  Unbeknownst to our four belt candidates, Master Edge replaced the plastic interlocking boards with actual wooden boards, and not the thin ones used on promotional days.  And by "boards," I mean two boards up against each other.  So she and the other students were tasked with breaking two boards in front of everyone for the first time.  Maddie was joking with her friend about wanting it to be someone else to go first... but yeah, she was called up there first!

Maddie did really well there, attacking those boards.  She hit with her wrist at first, but that flying kick really got everyone electrified.  The following blast from her elbow got a lot of huge cheers!

It was an epic moment!  Maddie led the charge, and soon after the others were breaking through too, concluding that portion of the testing.  All that remained was the forms demonstration of the night, and one by one, all the students went out there to show what they've been training on all this time.  Maddie did really well - you could hear the snap of her uniform as she did strikes and kicks.  It was amazing watching all these students!

Maddie was awesome super awesome!  All the students did really well tonight!  Nana and Ye-Ye were on hand to watch the whole thing and were impressed of course.  This Friday Maddie and the other three will get their new black belts at the annual ceremony, and it will be a special night.  We're all super excited and super proud of her!  Here are just a few other pictures I snapped from tonight's testing:

After the testing, Maddie wanted to go to our new favorite Mexican restaurant, Aurelio's, down on Friendship Road.  Nate was here too, along with Chloe and Kaylee for a fun little celebration party afterwards.  It was nice!

It was a great day today, starting out early at the Mall of Georgia, where Maddie and the other college students were visiting an escape room.  The college divided kids up into five teams, and by the end of the morning, they were tasked with the difficult challenge of getting out alive!  Maddie had a zombie apocalypse theme to it.  IT WAS ZOMBIE HOUR!

Maddie's group had the most difficult room of them all, but they got their heads and skills together and were able to escape with time to spare.  In fact, all the groups escaped this morning, and a good time was had by everyone.

Later on, the students went to a Free Chapel College Christmas party!

I told you this was a big day with lots going on!  Maddie had a lot of fun of course, and she got home this afternoon to take a long winter's nap, resting up before tonight's testing.  It was a good day today though, all started out by this guy here, with a present wrapped in Buc-ee's wrapping paper:

What was it that she unwrapped?  Let's take a look, shall we?

It's a can of Buc-ee's mints!  We'll see soon enough how curiously strong these are, but the Buc-ee's Christmas party keeps rolling on each morning, along with that Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar.  It's been a really fun Christmas season, one we closed out today with a couple Christmas specials on television, and reading from "Hogfather."  After prayers, you'd be absolutely correct if you thought we all fell asleep really quickly!