Murals and Blue Belts

There's a mural in Cumming, right near the fairgrounds.  In fact, you can see the arena at the top of this picture where we just saw the rodeo last month.  The mural in the foreground is new, and along the wall you can see quite a few people painting that mural.  One of those people is Madison - she's the one wearing white directly under the sun.  And during this sunny day, Madison and a few other students from the art club got to go over and participate in this community project.  She was pretty warm as the sun was out with some record temperatures and they were out there on the concrete.  But they had cool drinks, and they had some pizza for lunch too.  They were over there for a good part of the day, returning for only two class periods at the end, so it was a super fun day for the kids that got to go.  Madison had a great time.  

A few weeks later from this post, we visited the mural, and took a few pictures of Madison in front of the mural she helped paint.  

Here she is pointing out where she painted, along the horizon line, including the trees there.  And below, you can see where she signed her name:

It was a great opportunity, and an honor.  I have to say... I'm kind of jealous! 

When she got home, she was gearing up for something else altogether different:

This is a great picture of Madison doing her testing for the rank of Blue Belt Decided.  She's gone next week while all the other kids are testing, so her instructors agreed that she's met all the requirements thus far and could go ahead and test.  You see her above, all by herself testing in front of the class.  Typically, the class as a whole tests together when it comes to form, or at least in smaller sized groups where the instructors can keep a watchful eye on everyone to see if they've mastered their techniques.  But in this case, Madison was all by herself with the whole dojo watching, including parents and fellow students.  Nevertheless, she bravely stepped up and did a fantastic job, with her audience cheering and clapping at the end.

The rest of the class was a normal training for everyone, although at one point there were several kids that would come up to spar with Madison, one after the other.  Madison was there alone, and one at a time, different opponents would come up and spar with her for about thirty seconds, only to be replaced by a new challenger.  Madison was worn out by the end of that, but she held up her end really well against a lot of higher rank belt students.

We're pretty proud of her, and she is loving this.  She practiced at home with her form quite a bit, prepping in her mind and going through her form time and again.  And then, during the regular class itself, of course, the students were practicing as well.  You can see Madison was dressed in her complete uniform for this class, as it was a special occasion.

It was a regular night otherwise, but both Mommy and Daddy were on hand, as we always are for these events.  We haven't missed a single belt rank advance yet, and despite the busy schedule of late, we weren't going to miss this one either.

Madison looked good sparring tonight.  Look how she was paired with this much larger student here. Nevertheless, she kept charging forward, and doing her best to evade his longer reach.  She actually did pretty well there.

Look at her diving down, but still lunging forward for a strike.  She's very confident, moving forward no matter who her opponent is.

She did really well tonight, and at the end of the class, there was the big moment where all eyes were on Madison.  You can see her instructors looking on proudly.  Tucker has been fantastic, as you can see here he's pleased she got her form down.  He's been encouraging, educating, and inspiring.

At the end of the night, the announcement was made:  she passed the testing.  She did well, earning her blue belt decided.  We are super proud of her!

We got home tonight, and there was some studying tonight.  Madison has a presentation to deliver on Lebanon, and also a math quiz as well.  She got to that right away, and we had enough time to watch something shorter this evening as well - the Shrek 3-D movie from Universal Studios.  We read afterwards, moving forward with our story from the Star Wars universe.  We said our prayers, and it was quickly time to get to sleep after that.  It was a good day today, one filled with murals and blue belts...!