Shawn's a sportsman

Stephen met us at Pottowatamie to watch Shawn's flag football practice. Coach let us sit in the gym for a better view. They worked on the various player positions and each player's responsibility. They played a fun game of Everyone's IT!' where the point was to hold on to your ball so no one could knock it out of your grip. There were arbitrary points for tagging someone's ball and extra points for making someone fumble. (I just saw a great way to wear out a whole group of kids!) They even got to play a quick game at the end of practice.

After going out for lunch, driving around the countryside looking for ranches (aka possible employment for Stephen), and hanging out at home for a bit, we drove to Schaumburg to watch a National Karate Black Belt exam. Shawn was invited to participate in a 4-7 year old demo, so we got to skip the really long line (though it's free admission) and had special seats in a reserved section.

From an email about the event:
You will see fighting, people flipping each other, board breaks, sword demonstrations and the thrill of watching students earn one of the most prized accomplishments in life - a Black Belt!!!
(The two on the far left, on the West Team, are Shawn's main instructors.)

What an honor it was to be a part of this event! Wow. It was intense just to be in the audience! Here are a couple of snapshots from the program:

Shawn participated in a demonstration with 4-7 year olds. They did a few punches, kicks, and a running side kick.
 Shawn is the 3rd from the right in the video.  He's the only one wearing the foot & hand pads. At the beginning of the video, he's 3rd from the right. Then something happened to the lineup & he ended up being the last of the running sidekicks - the one you can hear yell HA-YA! (I think a couple people got skipped for some reason.)

running side kick

Though I don't fully understand the point system, it was fun to cheer for Shawn's instructors in the East-West Throwdown. It was a 3 on 3 sparring match between instructors from various National Karate's Chicago locations. Our team ended up winning (10-7, I think).

Back to the testing portions, the self defense was incredible to watch. The higher degree testers were disarming 'attackers' who came at them with wooden knives, rubber guns, & sticks, not to mention physical punches, grabs, & kicks sometimes from multiple people! (I think the 'attackers' should get some pretty huge consolation for getting tossed, thrown, flipped, & punched!) They rivaled any stuntman!

Another impressive part of the exam was the Horse Riding Stance Punches: punching while in a semi-squat position. For 3 minutes. Continuously. The expectation was that the last punch was to remain as powerful as the first. The audience support began with a polite clapping and a few shouts of encouragement, but it grew with every passing second. My hands felt raw from clapping after the first minute, but the energy of the room wouldn't let me stop! I can only imagine how it felt to the black belt candidates. Then came thunderous foot stomping, booming cheers, and immense applause. You could see a few candidates start to fade and it was obviously hard to finish, but with the energy in the room, they had no choice but to keep going. It sounded like we could've lifted the roof right off the gymnasium! Again, I can only imagine what it was like to be on that gym floor with aching muscles begging to quit but hearing the invigorating support coming from every direction. My heart was pounding out of my chest from the intensity!

And then, it was over.

The panel of judges (?) left for quite a while, as the candidates sat (mostly) motionless on the floor, supposedly reflecting on their journey to becoming a Black Belt. Eventually, the judges returned and presented each candidate with their new belt. Our South Elgin school's location had an impressive 35+ out of 75 total students promoted. (To my knowledge, no one wasn't promoted who tested today.) What an incredible event to witness and for Shawn to be a part of. Now that we know what it's all about, I hope we can do it again!