Utah Taekwondo State Championship Poster 2024

My kids and I have been students of taekwondo for about a decade. My oldest and I both have our 1st Dan black belts and my youngest will test for his this spring. You can read about my TKD journey here and here.

I have done a lot of graphic design work for our studio over the years too. My taekwondo master is involved with the Utah State Taekwondo Association and last month she asked me to create a poster for a state championship tournament.

My boys and me from 2018 and 2020.

We haven’t had a state tournament in Utah since 2019. In 2020, all tournaments were cancelled (remember that pesky pandemic?). Then, when tournaments started coming back, USA Taekwondo changed things up. They created four regional Grand Prix tournaments that were required for athletes to qualify for Nationals. This essentially rendered our state tournament moot.

Martial arts tournaments are expensive to run and very difficult to organize, so I get it. Why put on a tournament if we don’t have to? My kids competed in 2022 because our West Grand Prix was in Reno, NV (driving distance for us) and Nationals was home in Salt Lake City. Last year, we opted out of taekwondo tournaments because they were in Portland, OR and Jacksonville, FL. That was more expensive travel than we wanted to do.

USA Taekwondo has decided that our state tournament can be a qualifier for athletes who want to compete at Nationals… they just have to win gold or silver in their event(s). Awesome news for our athletes and even more awesome for athletes who want to get a little tournament experience, but want to have to travel to get it.

Back to the poster…

I did a quick Google search for taekwondo posters to see what others have done in the past. Most have photos of taekwondo athletes and since we haven’t had a tournament since 2019, I didn’t want to use old photos. Instead, I searched through my own photos of athletes from our studio at various events over the years and turned them into cartoons using Procreate on my iPad.

First I made a save-the-date graphic. I didn’t even know the tournament venue yet!

These are the two photos that I used for this first graphic. I took them at a sparring event we hold every few months at our studio. The first photo is of my son sparring his friend attempting to kick him in the head. He missed, haha!

I drew the athletes on separate layers and exported them separately so I could move them around independent from each other. This allowed me to make my son look a little larger and more proportional to his opponent, who’s like six inches taller than him. It also let me adjust the two girls sparring so Irene is making better contact with her opponent.

Oh, the random stuff that went through my head when creating these… including having to put them all in long-sleeved, white uniforms, gloves, and competition footwear called Daedo socks.

Most tournament posters feature sparring athletes because, let’s be honest, it’s one of the most exciting events to watch. Now that I know more about other events, like poomsae (forms), I enjoy them, but sparring always draws the most spectators.

Even so, I wanted to include more events, so off to my photo archive I went. This is the final poster once they figured out a venue and the little details:

Here are the various photos I used:

I snapped this photo at the 2018 state tournament of one of my instructors, Master Samy Moras as she competed in nunchucks. I was still learning the right settings for shooting indoors, hence the motion blur. She composed a YouTube video about that tournament you can watch here.

This photo is from the same state tournament of my friend Liam, doing a flying side kick as part of his board breaking routine.

A fellow student, Breanna demonstrating the black belt form keumgang in last spring’s black belt test. She was testing for her 2nd Dan black belt.

A former instructor, Logan doing a beautiful flying side kick during his 2nd Dan black belt test a few years ago.

A fellow student, Mirai, demonstrating poomsae during her black belt test last year.

I’m pretty happy with how the final poster turned out. I even managed to redesign the Utah State Taekwondo Association logo to something a bit more legible. Their old logo used a tough font to read and it never actually said “Association” on it. It said “Championships.” That redesign was tweaked even more this week to the final logo below:

What a fun project to work on! It was really soothing working in Procreate on these drawings and having fun with the folds and wrinkles of the uniforms. Plus, I was able to take my iPad with me to the trampoline park when my kids had a play date.

Now the most pressing issues: Are my kids going to compete? Am I??? My kids have done it before. They’ve competed in sparring, poomsae, and board breaking. I’ve never competed. I’ve never wanted to spend the money or stress about having to learn and essentially cram new poomsae in a short period of time. So we’ll see.

Black Belt Graduation

My oldest son and I both earned our Kukkiwon 1st Dan black belts in taekwondo back in October of last year. You can read about my taekwondo journey and me feelings regarding the test here and here’s a rundown of the test itself and my thoughts afterward (spoiler alert: it was really fucking hard).

What does that have to do with art or graphic design? Nothing. But this is my blog and it was pretty cathartic for me to write out my thoughts, so there we go.

We were finally able to have our graduation ceremony a couple months ago in March. Apparently it took a long time for the official certificates to get here from Korea.

Friends and family were invited to attend. Our master instructors were there along with a few studio instructors who were integral to our training. This was seriously a team effort!

The beginning of the graduation involved a trail run up a pretty steep hill where we were all presented with our black belts. I was the LAST one up the damned hill because I didn’t see which direction the group went and I went the wrong way. Also, it was ridiculously muddy, I almost fell multiple times.

We took lots of photos at the top of the hill and then headed back to our studio.

This photo is me with my husband. Anyone who has parented a child through the physical and mental preparation that goes into a martial arts black belt test would agree that there should be a black belt for parents. We have watched quite a few parents go through it and we wholeheartedly agree that they've earned their own kind of black belt.

Compound that with supporting your spouse going through the same-but-different preparation too and you have the level of awesomeness that my husband achieved. It took me a long time to put these feelings into words; which is apparent since our black belt test was months ago.

Part of me didn't want to test alongside my son because I worried that I would focus too much on his training at the expense of my own. My husband was the rock that supported our preparation and it took on multiple forms... Pushing our son when he wanted to quit or refused to listen to me anymore (which was a lot). Commiserating with me and offering ice/heat/massage/ibuprofen when I was in pain. Humoring me when I questioned why the hell I was doing this. Cooking dinner pretty much every night, including the 4-5 nights/week for 2-3 hours we were at the studio. Encouraging me to go to class when I didn't want to, but in a way that wasn't a guilt-trip. Coordinating with other parents to make sure we had support during our black belt test. Making sure uniforms were clean, sparring gear was accounted for, and belts and weapons were always in the car.

I don't know if I would have passed if I hadn't been able to put parenting (and sometimes adulting) on the back burner many nights and I feel like my husband earned this belt almost as much as me.

Wholeheartedly, thank you babe.

Back to the graduation…

We headed back to our studio and changed into uniforms. Our master instructor said a few words about what being a black belt means and how hard we worked for them. Then we all got our belts, one by one.

Actually, there IS a tiny bit of graphic design in this post because I do most of the graphic design for our studio. Here is the printed program I created for our graduation. These were 8.5x11 inches, folded in half, and printed on card stock at our local Office Depot. I kept the color scheme simple with black, gray, and red.

The back cover had a bunch of messages that I asked parents to write to their kids and there is one message from my husband to Rachel and me (the two non-kids). I felt it was a bit too personal to share publicly, but it looked beautiful too.

Lastly, here’s a video one of our master instructors made about our test. She’s pretty darned good at it.

So, that’s it.

But you know the crazy part? I’m thinking about testing for my 2nd degree black belt in October of this year…

Black Belt Testing - The Aftermath

My oldest son and I participated in a 2-day test at our taekwondo studio a little less than two weeks ago, hoping to earn our Kukkiwon 1st degree black belts. He’s been a student since he was three and a half, so that’s eight years of training for him. I started attending class about three and a half years ago with zero intention of doing anything but enjoy the workouts. The last of my bruises are healing that I’m not sure how I got and my muscles are finally not screaming at me when I roll out of bed in the morning. There’s still some fatigue that catches me off guard though. My friend Rachel, who tested with us, said it was the equivalent of running a marathon, so it’ll take more than a week to fully recover. I think she’s right!

I wanted to write out a rundown of what our test consisted of for anyone who’s curious; since we spent the better part of 2021 preparing for it. We were attending classes five to six times a week and training on our own in between. There were nine of us testing total and a bunch of us would get together on a regular basis to train and help each other out where needed. There was one other mom testing with me, Rachel, and one other 20-something adult who didn’t train with us. The rest were comprised of kids ages 11 to 15, two of whom were our own sons.

It was truly a team effort.

Yes, I created this poster. I do most of the graphic design for our studio. ;-)

So, what went into this test?

Back in the spring, we had to submit a “Black Belt Letter of Intent;” essentially a one-page essay explaining “why I want to be a black belt.” Then we had the rest of the summer to compose a five-page essay documenting our black belt journey; including mention of each of the five tenets of taekwondo (integrity, courtesy, self-control, perseverance, and indomitable spirit). The last essay required was one-page with our plans and goals for beyond the black belt test.

Throughout the year, we were required to assist in teaching taekwondo classes for 80 hours and also complete 20 hours of community service.

For candidates under age 18, they needed to get a letter of recommendation from a teacher and from their parents. My brother-in-law, who has a black belt in jiujitsu, wrote letters for both my son and me. While he may not know much about taekwondo, he understands the work and pride that goes into earning a black belt. I technically didn’t need a letter of recommendation, but his words totally made me cry. My son also got a letter from his 5th grade teacher since his current 6th grade teachers don’t really know him very well yet.

All of our essays, service hour sheets, and letters had to be printed and organized in a binder so our masters could read everything easily. These were due the 1st of October.

Lastly, we all had to compose a one-minute video documenting our black belt journey and it had to include voice over. I got some help honing my Adobe Premiere Pro skills from one of our awesome instructors, Jessa, when making both my video and my kid’s. Having to narrow down eight years of memories into a 90-second video was really, really hard!

Jessa is a film student and made a short documentary about Rachel and me a few months ago. I don’t know if she’s planning to add to it now that our test is over, but maybe??

Here’s a rundown of what our test consisted of:

Friday was all about pushing us past our limits physically. We had a long series of exercises where we completed as many reps as we could in the time limit. There was maybe a minute in between each exercise. For the times we alternated with a partner, we got a slightly longer break. All kicks had to be either belt level (on the bags), or shoulder level (on handheld targets).

My husband and my sister cheering us on!

Physical Test, Friday, 6:30-8:45pm:

• 5 minutes of jumping jacks (no stopping)

• 2 minutes of hand-release pushups (chest all the way to the floor, hands pop up)

• 2 minutes of sit-ups

• 2 minutes of burpees

• 2 minutes of air squats

• 2 minutes of v-ups (Google it, they suck)

• 2 minutes of flutter kicks

• 2 minutes of jumping squats

• 1 minute jumping front snap kicks on a target (alternating legs)

• 1 minute axe kicks

• 1 minute spinning hook kicks (right leg)

• 1 minute spinning hook kicks (left leg)

2 minute water break

• 1 minute roundhouse kicks

• 1 minute tornado kicks

• 1 minute jumping back kicks

• 1 minute butterfly kicks

• 1 minute repeat butterfly kicks with higher number of reps

• 1 minute butterfly burpees (drop into a burpee, pushup, then two roundhouse kicks on the bag)

• 1 minute mountain climbers, short sprint, 10 butterfly kicks (this one almost made me throw up)

1 minute water break

• kicking combinations 1-10 on targets in under 2 minutes

• speed Poomsae, Taeguek 1-8 in 2 minutes (hilarious to watch, we all looked awful)

My kiddo toughing it out!

Saturday was all about the technical side of the sport. We had to show how well we know all ten punching combinations, ten kicking combinations, four weapons forms, Taegeuk 1-8 Poomsae, and Koryo (1st Dan Black Belt Poomsae). Poomsae are choreographed sets of strikes, blocks, and kicks that mimic an attack and are performed with precision and power. Kind of like Tai-chi, but faster and more powerful. We also had to demonstrate four different weapons forms. Thankfully these weren’t about speed, all of these had to be demonstrated with power AND synchronously with the group. This was my strongest skill, but it was NOT an easy thing to teach the young teens!

Then we all donned our sparring gear and had to demonstrate an application of one Taeguek form with sparring gear and full contact.

Next up was sparring and then self-defense. Sparring is pretty straightforward. Self-defense, not so much. It’s essentially you versus three attackers for two minutes and very few rules. The goal is to keep fighting and to survive. We obviously aren’t aiming to knock someone out, or actually break knees, but we are expected to shove, punch, and kick. There are kicks to the groin, throws, and lots of yelling.

The last part was board breaking. We all had to create a routine with eight boards and demonstrate our skills at both setting up board holders and executing the breaks in one shot. In between each of these routines, we all watched each other’s black belt journey videos.

My sister surprised me by flying from LA to join us for the 5k and cheer us on during testing.

Saturday morning, 8am start

• 5k run in under 45 minutes

• 1 hour written test on taekwondo history and theory

break for lunch

Technical Test, Saturday, 1:30pm start

• Punching combinations 1-10, both sides in sync

• Kicking combinations 1-10, both sides, in sync

• Poomsae, Taegeuk 1-8 (color belt forms) in sync

• Poomsae, Koryo in sync

• Individual Poomsae, Koryo and 2 mystery forms

• Bo staff form in sync

• Nunchucks form in sync

• Kamas form in sync

• Eskrima form in sync

4 minute break for water and to put on sparring gear

• Application of Poomsae, Taegeuk of choice with full contact

• Tag-team sparring, 20 minutes total, multiple rounds

• 1-minute sparring rounds, x2 per candidate

• Self-defense, 1 vs 3 for 2 minutes, full contact

2 minute break to remove sparring gear

• board breaking, 2 speed foot breaks, 2 speed hand breaks, 3 power foot breaks, 1 power hand break (power vs speed is determined by how the board is held)

• inspirational videos in between each person board breaking

My favorite parts were Application of Poomsae and the 5k (even though I still don’t love running). The weather was chilly, but we managed to avoid the rain that came later, and the fall foliage was incredible. Application of Poomsae was fun. It shows how well we really know and understand the forms and it was fun to add drama to our kicks and punches.

Surprisingly, I kind of enjoyed the tag-team sparring too. Sparring, as a whole, is really hard and scary for me. I am constantly afraid of twisting a knee or rolling an ankle, all while trying to avoid getting kicked in the head. The tag-team format was really fun and fast-paced with everyone swapping in and out pretty quickly. It let us all see each other spar and I was surprised that I enjoyed it. I may have audibly whimpered when one of our masters ended it with, “that was a great sparring warmup, now let’s do some do real sparring.”

My least favorite parts were pretty much all of Friday and self-defense. Friday was really hard for me. I experienced dizziness and nausea at a few points and was proud that I didn’t actually throw up. It pushed me to the very end of my stamina and endurance… and then pushed some more. I was also really, really nervous, so that made it hard for me to calm down and actually rest in between exercises.

In my self-defense exercise, I was terrified of falling down. The sparring chestguard (hogu) is quite long on my torso, and I knew that if I fell down, it would be tough for me to get back up again. Then, one of my attackers got overzealous with a padded bat and was whipping my head as hard as he could repeatedly. At one point I shouted “what the fuck?!” and I heard one of our masters ask him to stop with the bat. In a real-life scenario, if that had been a real bat, I would’ve died after the first blow. He was hitting that hard. He was also hitting me from behind while I fended off a different attacker and, while it didn’t hurt physically, it made me incredibly angry because it was not applicable to the exercise. I haven’t been that furious in a very long time and it took me a few minutes to get my emotions in check after my two minutes were up. I did NOT want to cry in front of that guy. In the end, I managed to stay on my feet the whole time and that was a victory for me.

I was so disappointed in my board breaking. I didn’t break all of the boards on the first try and only one of them was because my board holder didn’t do a good job. I think my brain and my body were just FRIED by that point. I really should’ve practiced the breaks more often than I did and requested to practice with real boards.

Now we wait. Any day now, our masters will reach out to set up times to meet with us one-on-one to go over our results. I have been reassured that testing is based on individual skill, fitness, and training, not comparing one candidate to another. But it’s human nature to compare ourselves to others and I can’t help but wonder where I may have fallen short.

For the last couple of weeks, it’s been tough to settle my mind now that the test is over. I haven’t been able to sleep well these past few weeks. I remember a little part of the test and go over and over how I could’ve done it better or even just differently. What did we miss in training that we should’ve practiced more? I’m very confident in a few areas, others I’m just not sure.

Either way, I’m super proud of all of us. My kiddo kicked butt and worked hard throughout and I’m proud of myself for sticking with this and not quitting when it got hard. My husband wrote a long post on Facebook just before our test and this line rang so true for me, “Her body has tried to shut this down many times, but her mind has managed to overcome every hurdle thus far.” #IceAndIbuprofenFTW

Black Belt Testing - What the Heck am I Doing?!

It’s the end of September. In a little more than one week, I’ll be testing for a Kukkiwon black belt in taekwondo. To say I’m apprehensive is an understatement.

Like seriously, how did I get here?!

I am fully aware that every martial arts studio and program has its own testing methods; no two are alike. Even within taekwondo studios, every studio does its belt ranking differently.

My oldest son, T started taekwondo when he was three. He has always been naturally agile when it comes to physical activity, so he took to taekwondo quickly. The discipline has been great for his ADHD brain and he competed in his first sparring tournament when he was six. He’s been training for eight years and he will be testing for his black belt with me next week.

His instructor, Master Amely, goaded me into attending a “Mom’s Class” one morning when T was almost four. She assured me that I would have fun and I really did. The class kicked my butt and I was unbelievably sore for days afterward. A week later, when it was time to go to the next class, I found out I was pregnant with my youngest son after more than two years of unexplained infertility. I was already feeling fatigue and I didn’t have it in me to attend another class. Master Amely seemed to understand and didn’t push. She also seemed to think she cured my infertility. Maybe??

My youngest son, M started attending classes at 22 months old. His first word was “ay-ya!” and he competed in his first sparring tournament when he was only four. Now, at age seven he takes it very seriously and joined the Extreme Team this year where he gets to learn extra tricking, board breaking, tumbling, and performs choreographed routines at belt graduations and events.

M was four years old before I had the courage and could scrape together enough confidence to attend a taekwondo class again. I was approaching my 40th birthday and struggling with serious body-image issues. Around the time M turned two, I gained about forty pounds and I still don’t know why. I’m fairly certain hormones are to blame, but it was tremendously frustrating to get used to my body at 2-3 sizes bigger than what has always been normal for me. Even after three years of taekwondo training, I am still working on getting used to it.

I’ve watched bits and pieces of the black belt test in years past. It’s two days long. It looks exhausting both physically and mentally. I’ve seen candidates fail who were younger and more fit than me. There are physical challenges that I know will push me past the boundaries of my abilities. There’s a grueling physical fitness test, a written test, a Poomsae test, a sparring test, self defense (5 vs 1), a 5k run, and we have to create and execute a board breaking routine. We have to assist in teaching classes for 80 hours and do 20 hours of community service. We have to get letters of recommendation from teachers and parents (for those under 18). We have to write eight different essays beforehand and we have to create a 1-minute video with photos and voiceover talking about our black belt journey.

There’s a reason they only have black belt testing once or twice a year.

My body is so tired and my brain is fried. My left hip and IT band are giving me issues and there’s a spot behind my right knee that aches. I have almost-constant foot pain and my neck and shoulders are screaming to take a break from holding up my boobs. To be honest, I have had more and more thoughts about quitting this week than ever.

But this close and I know I can’t quit. I need to do this both for my kids and for myself. I need to be able to show them how practice, patience, and hard work can pay off and that even at my age, I can do things that are both physically and mentally challenging. 

I stuck with taekwondo because I loved the workouts. I never had any intention of belt testing or even considering a black belt. I finally did my first color belt test just to show my kids that I could.

As I earned higher belts and the curriculum got more challenging, I realized that I needed to do this for myself as well. Making my family and friends proud is one thing, but I need to be proud of myself. I have never set a goal quite like this before. I spent most of my 30s caring for my kids and never really making time to take care of myself; both mentally and physically.  A large part of me is hoping that reaching this massive goal will help boost my confidence and body image. I have struggled with accepting my body since pregnancies resulted in drastic changes. Perhaps this accomplishment can help me love and accept the body I am in. If anything, I will be proud of all of my hard work and how it all has paid off.

Maverick's Birth Announcement

My little sister and her husband welcomed their first child into the world this spring. Maverick was born on the day my sister had an appointment to get her hair cut and colored, but he obviously needed ALL of the attention that day. 

Maverick's daddy is a black belt in jujitsu, and he asked if we could do some sort of "fighter poster" with some made-up stats. I looked up vintage boxing and martial arts posters and came up with this for his birth announcement. I had to look up what the lightest weight class is in jujitsu, I've never heard of a strawweight.  

These were printed by Overnight Prints, and they don't charge extra for double-sided printing. So I put some cute photos on the back. 

Love this little guy!! Welcome to the world Mav!