This one, however, was significant. Kyle was up for his provisional black belt. This involved 4 hours on Friday, 7 on Saturday and Sunday.
Today, Kyle and the other candidate were proving themselves by running the "Black Belt Mile", exhibiting their skills in their katas, sparring and board breaking.
Kyle made Marj and I proud parents. His teacher told us that going into this weekend, there was some concern about the time he was able to spend being mentored by Nicki (she and the other provisional black belt were testing for their actual black belt). Because I played this weekend, I was unable to attend most of the day. I got to see some of the test they put him through in spite of that. He spend 10 to 15 minutes sparring with various students one after another, each one fresh and Kyle getting more and more tired. He had already run 1/2 mile, done the various warm-ups that were done, spent Saturday learning to knife fight as well as street fight for self defense.
Talking to his teacher later, I found out that the purpose of this was to prove Kyle's character. Kyle did well. He didn't give up even though he was being hit more and more as well as being fatigued and having a headache from the blows (he was wearing protective head gear, hand padding, etc, but unlike many others, no protective chest pad).
It was a side of Kyle I don't often. We won't know for a couple of weeks if Kyle earned the provisional black belt. Keep posted!
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