ST. PETERS—Twelve students from the King Yen Taekwondo School have earned promotion at the Hillside Christian School gym Sunday.
Passing the exam to earn a white belt with one yellow stripe are Bengt Acosta, Jayesh Advani, Luisa Perez,
Henri Seferina and Raj Sooknarine.
Earning a white belt with two yellow stripes are Lucas Brouwer, Cherise Heide, Tariq James, Luisa Perez, Gheisha – Lee Rosalia-Liu and Shon Sooknarine.
Aventurin Xavier earned a blue belt.
The examinations are conducted in accordance with rules and regulations of the World Taekwondo federation and the Kukkiwon under the auspices of the St. Maarten Tae Kwon Do Federation and officially authorized by their recommender Grandmaster Theo Liu.
"Each time the students graduate from one level to the next, it is a positive development for the Taekwondo sport on St. Maarten,” said the grandmaster.
Liu was assisted by his locally trained black belt holders Master Paul Djasmin (2nd Dan), Lee – Ann Liu(2nd Dan), and Ivyanne Louisa,
The students were tested for gymnastics and flexibility, basic techniques and patterns while the higher belts were also tested on free sparring and break-tests with either hand- or foot technique.
“We had quite some students that took an exam for the first time and the results were encouraging” said G.Master Liu who frequently takes his students to international tournaments where they achieve great results and take home many gold medals. Recently the school was undoubtful awarded with the Brown Pelican Award in the category Best Overall Team 2018.
