Pictures: Hiii-Ya!

Last weekend I went to LA to watch Trish test for her black belt in Tae Kwon Do (TKD). It was an amazing experience.

Although my 6 AM flight was canceled (it's cruel to cancel a flight that required a 4 AM wake-up time) and I didn't make it to Burbank until almost noon, Felix was nice enough to pick me up and we made it to the studio in time to see the entire program.

Trish did great weapons and forms routines and then came the biggie: the Wall of Black. Actually, I'm not sure if that's what it was really called, but that's what it looked like to me. As her final test to earn her black belt, she had to fight every single black belt in her school. She waited on the mat while they lined up -- all 16 of them. She sparred them one at a time, one after another, no breaks in between. She started with the newest black belts and worked her way up to the most advanced -- 3rd and 4th degree black belts. By then, she'd been sparring for over 3o minutes and could barely move, but she didn't break and made it through all of them! It was almost difficult to watch at times, but we were all so proud of her for surviving it -- a true test of mental and physical fortitude.

On top of it all, she only had enough time to strip off her sparring pads before she was called back up to break her boards! She broke one with her arm and then took a flying leap over a mat to kick another one mid-air. Then, as a crowd-pleaser, she did the flying kick leap AGAIN -- this time jumping over her nephews Nicholas and Zachary! It was truly an incredible show.

After Trisha earned her black belt, we all headed to the clubhouse at her residential community to enjoy tons of delicious food prepared by her family and drinks served by a very conscientious bevy of 9-year olds. We ate until we couldn't move anymore, watched videos of the day's events, and then finally called it a day. A group of us moved over to Trish's house and stayed up for another few hours playing the Wii, but I can't vouch for much of what happened at that point because I fell asleep on the couch. Trisha did too, but she did just spend the afternoon fighting off 16 black belts so she had good reason.

We spent a lazy Sunday playing more Wii, eating left-overs, and falling asleep on the couch again before I headed back to the airport for my flight home. It was a quick trip, but I'm so glad that I was able to go! I've posted a few pictures on Flickr -- as always, click to view them!

Link: View TKD pictures