I'm so blue: Belt Ceremony

Belt ceremonies are festive gatherings. They're a time of great celebration. After a hard test (aren't they all?) it's nice to celebrate. This time my favorite photographer, Robbie, came along to take photos!

At a Belt Ceremony, we arrive and line up close together, and often start with a few punches and kihaps together.



Master Hughes then calls us up to the front, beginning with the lowest belts. We go up with our peers. We bow, then turn and take off our old belts. Master Hughes comes to each person and ties on the new belt.

Then there's lots of time for pictures and congratulations.
Here I am (in the picture below) with Michelle and her dad, Brian A. Michelle cracks me up. When I came into the changing room before the ceremony, she greeted me with "Hi Jane! I'm learning algebra!"

Both she and Brian A. are great to be around; their sunny, optimistic personalities and great senses of humor are contagious.

Here I am with the other blue belts. I'm hamming it up and showing off my tattoo. You don't want ALL the belt ceremony pictures to look the same. Maybe we should do a human pyramid next time.

After the celebrating, Ms. Pryor helped me and Brian with our new form. It's a really cool form with some moves I didn't understand. Ms. Pryor explained them to me. That slow punch at the beginning is kind of pushing someone away. The scrapes down each arm are blocks.




"This form really shows off your power," said Ms. Pryor.

"Oh great," I replied. "Like I have any power."

"This form will bring it out," she reassured me. Here's Brian patiently showing me the first moves.


Brian worked with me on the form for a while. He knows it from helping Matthew. Actually, Matthew wanted to help me, too. Here you can see me learning the form in a movie that Robbie made. "It's called 'Mom Learning Her Form,'" says Robbie.

I think I'll have Robbie take a movie of us doing the form when I actually know it, too!