Six people testing, three of them my own kids; it could have created an awkward situation that smacked of favoritisim, but went smoothly, and all of the students did well. There were a few iffy moments with our third dan candidate when he spaced on a few moves in his form, and when sparring with Alex he held back a little too much, but he was also testing with a migraine that has plagued him for five days. Dack and TK were well aware of this, and those few misteps did not detract from the opinion of the instructors from an associate school; they found his skills to be adequate, and passes him.

That there was more than one guest judge (for lack of a better term) surprised me. Dack was concerned about the possible perception of favoritisim because half the students testing were my kids, and he asked for two extra additional black belts to sit on the panel.

It took three hours to run them through everything, starting with a two mile run and ending with each of them having to spar me for three minutes. For the first time, all students passed. Usually there's one person who lets the nerves get the better of them and either drops out partway through or just doesn't reach down deep enough, but today they did.

I'm still not completley on board with allowing 10 year old kids to test for their black belts, but Kevin and Jaime did well; if they continue on remains to be seen.

In any case, Kevin and Rachel both earned their first degree black belts, and Alex nailed everything for his second.

To celebrate, we're taking them out for pizza and video games tonight, along with their grandfather, cousins and aunt, and probably a few friends.

Tomorrow, I'm sleeping in.