I'm a Survivor!

On Friday night, Brishen and I tested for our next belt levels.  This was the first test at this school for either of us, and we found out as soon as we got to the school that the instructor who teaches all our classes was sick.  That meant we tested without even that friendly face in front of us.  The hardest part of the whole night is what you see above.  We sat for most of three hours in that position, legs crossed with our hands on our knees.  It may seem easy at first, but my back, ankle, and knee did not exactly feel good after the first 35 minutes.  Yes, we are slouching by the time Jon took the picture.  We are not machines, after all.  We were tested on our punches, blocks, kicks, combinations, forms, some questions, and wood breaking.  I was a yellow belt and had been told how I would be breaking wood as a yellow belt (roundhouse kick and elbow strike).  I found out when it was my turn that they were testing me up a level so my breaks would be different.  I did not panic, and was able to break the wood with a reverse knife-hand strike and an ax kick. 

Here's Brishen's successful ax kick.  Brishen has earned his purple belt, and I now have a beautiful green belt.  I am happy to have moved beyond the yellow belt that I had for a year!

 After belt testing until late in the night, we got up early the next morning to "enjoy" the Las Cruces Half-Marathon.  Above you can see the large group of family and friends who braved the races.  My kids, my parents, and my brother did the 5K.  Brishen cut 7 minutes off his best 5K time and has the bug to run more races.  My mom really enjoyed the 5K, too, and my dad did it, which is really big!  The rest of us did the 1/2 marathon, and, yes, we survived!

 These are my parents, my good examples!  They show me time and again that we should never stop learning, trying new things, making life interesting, and surprising others with what we do.

 Here's the family photo from after the race.  We weren't all as interested in standing this time around.  I think we all look pretty proud, though.

We learned an important lesson.  If you win the race, you get a trophy.  If you come closer to the end (or have to wait for those who come closer to the end, like my sister Robin, who got a great time herself and then stayed to cheer the rest of us on), you get much better prizes!  The event coordinators were handing out packages of bagels and napkins to anyone who was still around toward the end of the morning.  You have to find a spot to put a trophy and dust it once in a while, but bagels and napkins can be put to immediate use!  I should say, though, that both of my kids won trophies for their age divisions, as did my mom, so there were trophies in addition to those bagels.  Shucks, I'll have to dust.