7 yr old blackbelt!

After having spent half of life on TDK, JJ finally got his blackbelt on Sat 4/27/2013. Lots of training with dad and private lessons w/ Mr. Kivi. JJ wanted to quit right after New Years! Mr. Kivi helped turned him around. Trained hard w/daddy for the inhouse tournament which he got first place in sparring. After that, he's completely into TKD. Doing his forms everywhere we went. It's an amazing turnaround. Simply incredible. Lots of sweat, tears and stress (mostly daddy's) in this journey. On testing day, he breezed thru forms (songham 1 and chu chong 2), creative weapon specialty (sword w/ gangnam style) and even the Wall (he said it was tougher than he thought but he made it look easy). He had to spar for 15 solid min with all higher ranks including instructors who pounded on him pretty hard. He was the smallest and youngest of all 3 BB candidates. The only two were 9 (Gurtej) and 11 (Kevin). All three did great. The finale was board break - 2 x 0.5 inch thick 10x9 wooden boards. JJ smsshed the first one with elbow strike w/ease. However, his axe kick took the third try before the break took place. Quite surprising as he did it with one try in his prep and it was easy. After the 2nd failed attempt, daddy's heart stopped for it was his final chance. Thank God, he did it on the final attempt. One of the biggest reliefs in life for daddy. Couldn't and didn't want to imagine what would happen if he failed and did not get his black belt. What a great day! JJ was over the moon with his new found status and membership to this exclusive club. He did a very very short speech about thanking daddy for training with him, mommy for taking pics and Mr Kivi for the private lessons. He had to follow the tradition of not taking off the belt for 24 hours. Wear it with pride and show it off -that's what Watson senior essentially said - He was an interesting character and has watched jay ever since he started at Master Kim's.