Charlie's a Blue Belt!

This past Saturday, we attended a graduation ceremony for Charlie's Karate class. The Karate studio that Charlie is a part of has so many students that they hold their graduation ceremonies at a Middle School Gym (and fill it completely!).

For this ceremony, the studio brought in a 10th degree black belt as a special guest who is a apart of the lineage of our studio. He was also the first American Martial Arts Champion. So that was pretty cool for the kids to meet someone who has dedicated their life to Karate.

The ceremony was filled with demonstrations and lots of belt presentations! All in all, we were there for over 2 hours and I'm guessing that we witnessed over 100 belt presentations (Andrew is guessing that it was over 200...!).

As a blue belt, Charlie will continue working on his Katas, forms, sparring (yes -- real sparring -- I can't watch it!), and now he will need to do verbal presentations to advance beyond blue belts. Our Karate studio believes in their students conquering fears -- including the fear of public speaking! So, at blue belt, they require all of the students to have to prepare and make a speech in front of their peers.

Tyler has chosen to take a break from Little Dragons Karate -- He is hopeful to start American Karate soon! So he was very supportive of Charlie's new ranking. He also found his reading buddy from school sitting close by! He couldn't resist to go sit by him and chat about the day!

We hop you are all having a great week and looking forward to a blessed Christmas!