Graduating To A New Rank

Graduation day
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Today was a day to celebrate the hard work it took to accomplish earning a new rank in our Karate and Krav Maga classes. Each of us advanced to our next rank. Eva has earned her third belt. She’s our newest student in the family and she is loving her classes. She really taking her training seriously. She has even set up a workout routine to do each night. She lights up on Krav days or when she remembers that she has class.

Andy has earned the rank of advanced brown. This is where he and I diverged in our belts being the same color. Adults go from brown to red then advanced red. Karate kids go from brown to advanced brown then to red. Either way we each have about a year before we test for our black belts. Andy did an excellent job on his test. He enjoyed learning how to use nunchuks this time around. I think this is his best work yet.

As for me I earned my red belt. I’m coming up on two years at America’s Best Defense. It has been a major challenge for me. When I started I had frozen shoulder and I could barely do a dozen pushups without falling to my knees. Now I am doing 40 each morning and 40 each night. Shoulder pain is pretty much gone. I’m definitely feeling much stronger after training a couple of days a week for a few years. It has been an interesting journey for all of us. Even Allison took a Women’s Self Defense class this past year.

The 2020 Christmas Tree

2020 Christmas Tree
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It seems that everyone went and bought their live Christmas trees the day after Thanksgiving this year. We went to Attleboro Farms and when we got there they had 10 trees left. They had 800 to start with. So, our tree is probably the tiniest tree we have ever gotten. It is also super skinny. But that is what we had to choose from. We’ll make it work. It just means we put a few fewer ornaments on the tree. Only the most important ones will make it on the tree.