Another color thing that's going on around here is Husband's achievement yesterday of a new level of testing at martial arts. He and both of the kids study Wing Chun Do with Rocco Ambrose whom you may remember me raving about here. WCD was founded by James DeMile (whom we know as Sijo, Chinese for 'founder'). Sijo trained with Bruce Lee in his Seattle days, after being a champion boxer in the navy, along with Jesse Glover and about a half dozen other tough-guy, street fighter types. He then went on to codify a form of Wing Chun that was based almost entirely on body mechanics and efficiency of motion and called it Wing Chun Do. Rocco is the inheritor of that system when Sijo is finally ready to retire.
Just a little background on the system, so I can share a couple pictures I took yesterday at Husband's test. The adult belt progression goes like this: basic, white, yellow, orange, orange stripe, purple, purple stripe, blue, green, brown, and black. Husband and 16-year-old-Boy are now both at purple stripe.
Rocco has the clipboard, Husband is doing a move called 'converging' across the floor. It concentrates all the core muscles into a punch called a chung choie. That's 16-year-old-Boy looking all tall and skinny with the practice pad.
Husband and I were out of town when 16-year-old-Boy tested for his stripe, so I asked him to show it to me so I could take a picture. This is the pose he elected to use. Can you say, "Dork?"
And here's an awesome shot of Sibok Rocco Ambrose and the newest addition to the rank of purple stripe. This is what it looks like when your teacher is also your good friend.
(This is actually my 100th post. I promise to do something one hundred-y for tomorrow)
