Zachary has been studying karate for almost 5 years now. About 2 months ago he got cleared to test for his black belt. Since then, he’s been in intense training, leading up to two consecutive weekends of testing. Last week was the formal stuff—a verbal presentation and his kata. This weekend was the fighting part. He had to go through a set of eight self-defenses he’d created, then do some grappling. The session finished with 15 consecutive 2 minute sparring sessions with a mixture of classmates and black belts, with a 30 second break between each, topped of with a no-holds sparing session with an instructor, followed by a session of two-on-one sparring. It’s been a couple of hours, and I think all of our heart rates are all still elevated.

He has worked so incredibly hard for this. I’m so proud of him.

Now I have to work out how to live with a teenage son who is both bigger than me and formally trained in martial arts :)