Spring 2026 Black Belt Cycle

Candidate Journals

King Tiger Tae Kwon Do Black Belt candidates blog daily about their journey: their thoughts and feelings, their struggles and successes; their pain and their encouragement. Follow along on their journey; words of encouragement are always welcome!

My name is Liam Sanchez. I was born in San Antonio, TX in 2014 but raised since I was 2 years old in NC. I am a Bocho dan at King Tiger - Harrisburg. In my free time I like to code, and I am currently learning JavaScript (Code.org), Python (Raspberry Pi), C++ (Arduino), block coding (Scratch/Microsoft Makecode), and Lua (Roblox Studio). I also...

My name is Liam Sanchez. I was born in San Antonio, TX in 2014 but raised since I was 2 years old in NC. I am a Bocho dan at King Tiger - Harrisburg. In my free time I like to code, and I am currently learning JavaScript (Code.org), Python (Raspberry Pi), C++ (Arduino), block coding (Scratch/Microsoft Makecode), and Lua (Roblox Studio). I also play baseball, soccer and basketball for Harrisburg Parks and Rec, and will be transitioning from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts with Troop 83 within the next few weeks. 

More

Wednesday ()

Today I woke up tired. For some reason, my brain would not let me to sleep last night. Today when I got to school, me and my friend worked on the 4 boys, 1 car. It is almost though the first chapter. Nothing really happened for math today, nor reading. I made a secret language in my free time today after all my math work was done. It is pretty cool but also complicated at the same time.  At recess, we played soccer and I scored a goal. At intervention, after I finished my work, again, me and my friend started to work on the 4 boys. 1 car show. I also got a headache when I was in encore. Today for encore, we had dance. After dance, we learned science. What we learned in science was stationary and occluded fronts. My teacher says that science is the hardest subject to...

Continue reading
  0 Hits

First day back from a long weekend

Today was the first day back to school from the long weekend. For breakfast I had a granola bar, but I don't think I got much energy from it.  I felt sleepy in class and almost fell asleep later in math class. I started to wake up at lunch, which is at 11:05. "Finally, finally" went through my head when I heard that we will be going outside for the first time in a week. I played soccer at recess. I didn't score, but I tried with multiple shots on goal, and a free kick. Hopefully, I can score tomorrow if we go outside. The score was 3-0, with my team losing. During intervention, me and my friend started to work on the next episode of 4 boys, 1 car. After school, I packed my dinner to eat at taekwondo, grabbed all of my stuff, then headed out the door. When I...

Continue reading
  13 Hits

Fun Monday ()

Today was a wonderful day. I woke up, and I got ready for brunch with my memaw. We ate at Louis Grill (I think that is what it is called). I brought my switch to play on Game Builder Garage. Game Builder Garage is a game where you make games like tag showdown, which is a tag game, and you can make your own games from scratch. I set a challenge for myself that for each month, there is a thing I have to make in Minecraft. This month's project is a tree house. I have to make it in the middle of nowhere, in 15 Minecraft days, and survive 5 days. After I got done brainstorming about my project, I had free time to work on my White Belt essay and look over my written test study guide. I completed what I could and brought it with me to class...

Continue reading
  26 Hits

Sunday, ok

Today was an ok day. I woke up and got ready for church. Church lasted for about an hour. Then, when I got home, I hung out in my room. After about 3 hours, I went over to my great grandpas to go visit, then to my memaws house, then to my friend's house. Today was the last time I will see their house because they are moving out. I'll still be able to see him, but it won't be the same. We played games like soccer, basketball, and War. If you don't know what war is, it is a game where we are on X amount of teams, most likely 2 teams. There are two types of gameplay, Capture the Flag (Kinda bad not going to lie) and the OG style, I don't know what it is called though. Capture the Flag is where the amount of flags plus 1...

Continue reading
  26 Hits

Saturday plans

Today is Saturday, and we had an early basketball game. I made 2 points today and we won like 43-21, I believe. My team did really well with passing the ball and using the whole court. Early in the game the other team had the lead but started to not communicate well as we started making a comeback. Right after our game, I head to taekwondo to help assist with the junior class. Today was also my last day in my white belt challenge so it was nice being able to finish that part. I was able to work with Ryker on staff form 1 and get a mentor session out of the way. After we got home from taekwondo, I showered and took a much-needed nap. From there, I played on my laptop until we went to my friend Acyn's house. His mom is selling their home, so my mom...

Continue reading
  43 Hits

Friday Fun

This morning, I woke up and it was extremely cold outside. I would prefer it to be this cold if it were snowing but that's not going to happen. When I got to school, I worked on the ending of our show. Today was the first day that 4 boys, 1 car had it first views not by me or my friend, THE WHOLE CLASS SAW. If you want to see the episode too, go here: 4 boys, 1 car EP: 1 SE: 1 Today in math, we did subtracting decimals. In reading, we read chapter 8 of The Phantom Tollbooth. The book is interesting. Again, we didn't go outside because it was "too cold". It was only 34° out, stop overreacting. In science, we learned about warm and cold fronts. Traffic was bad when we were leaving school due to the Walk for Peace that came through our area. My mom...

Continue reading
  25 Hits

Rugby day



Today was LONG! When I woke up, I got ready for school and grabbed a granola bar for breakfast. When I got to school, I again worked on my show with my friends. It is halfway animated and almost ready to go. After that, in math we learned about subtracting decimals. And then in reading, we read another chapter of our book. Then it was time for lunch. Today I brought grilled chicken and toppings to make a pita sandwich, and I also had this massive apple that we got the other night. We didn't get to go outside today because it "felt like 16 degrees out" so I got to stay with my AIG teacher. She gave me and Jackson a game board that I brought home to make a board game that goes with our show. You can play as one of the 4 boys and answer trivia questions...

Continue reading
  48 Hits

Church

Today when I got to school, me and my friend, Jackson worked on the "4 boys, 1 car" show. It is in its final stages before getting released to my classmates. For math today, we did a worksheet for estimating and adding decimals. For reading, we read our book, The Phantom Tollbooth, and we did a story map about the chapter we were reading. For recess today, we stayed inside because it was DRIZZLING, not even raining, and they thought a whole entire tornado was going to hit outside our school. In science, we learned about air pressure. In encore, which we had arts in action, we learned about the industrial revolution. We also did an activity where we were in a factory, making happy birthday cards and we learned about how children worked in factories for 12 hours a day. After school, played games, and I practiced my bible verses...

Continue reading
  40 Hits

Teaching as a "White Belt"

I tried a new breakfast today, Oats Overnight. It was Cookies and Cream flavor and wasn't half bad. When I got to school, I started working on my show during free time. From there I just did our normal class schedule, and at lunch I had leftovers from last night to make "walking tacos". Basically, you use any individual sized bag of chip you like, add your beef (or chicken), and whatever toppings you like, mix and enjoy. At recess, we played soccer and I scored 4 goals. The score was 7-8 with us losing. Hopefully tomorrow my team will win. In AIG today, I worked on a logo for my business that I have with my friend Jackson (from my story, 4 boys 1 car). Our business is called "SanLin" which is a combination of my last name (Sanchez) and Jackson's which is Lin. Our product is basically like the...

Continue reading
  51 Hits

First day as a white belt in a while

Today when I got to school, I told my friend Jackson, how much progress I made on a show that we are making. The show is called "4 boys, 1 car". And of course, we made it in google slides. I'll see if after this first episode, I can make it available for you to watch. It is almost done so I will see if I can get it done by Friday. Since it is mine and my friend's time animating, it will look weird but, it will look better when we progress with the series. Today at recess, I scored a goal in soccer. At PE, we played soccer again. Our teams were good in PE but at recess, my team passed to me 1 time, not joking. And I scored that one time. After school, I did my requirements for the black belt cycle. I have not gone to...

Continue reading
  45 Hits

Rest day

Today is Sunday, my rest day. What I did was not really a rest day, but still relaxing. I went to church, church was fun. I got 2 candies in the morning because we had to build a temple and the team that won get 2 pieces of candy, and the losing team gets only 1 piece of candy. After that, I went to go shopping for my second cousin's 2nd birthday. When we finished shopping, I got home and played on my computer. Then, I went to her birthday party. After the party, we went shopping for food so I can write about my 30 days during my nutrition part of the cycle. I had been wanting to get into the hot tub at home, so after we got in and the groceries put away, I changed into my bathing suit and got in. Apparently, it was 39 degrees outside...

Continue reading
  45 Hits

Pre-test day

Today as soon as I woke up at 5:30a.m., I grabbed my water, my junior instructor's book, my jump rope, a pen, and my black belt book. I studied so hard last night and this morning to get ready for the pre-test. I even studied staff form 1 and double stick form (I didn't really need to do that, but I thought I needed to do it for some reason). I thought in my head the whole time "what if I forget all of the stuff-". I panicked then I got my confidence back. When I got done with poomsaes, I was so sore. The pre-test really was a challenge, but I got through it. I also like that now I have a better understanding of what I'm doing, where I'm currently at and have a baseline to help myself improve from. When I left from the North Charlotte King Tiger,...

Continue reading
  50 Hits

Day before pretest

Today when I got to school, I realized that tomorrow is the pretest for the black belt cycle. Well, I am excited but, I am also nervous. It is my first time doing all of the forms and self-defense at one time. Also, I have never taken a physical fitness test before. My allergies have also been messing with my sleep and my focus (because I need to blow my nose a lot). After school, I took some medicine and a nap before my black belt class. I also did sparring tonight. After I got home from taekwondo, I reviewed everything for the pretest. I hope I do well in the morning. In my free time at school, I worked on code for my phone project in code.org. This is the link to it so far if you want to check it out:  https://studio.code.org/projects/applab/t8oueKkPLWNOX3I7e6KQqStJwTfnaHcKdoyaLXxkWao  If you click the link, you will...

Continue reading
  41 Hits

Class

I made a vending machine out of the boxes of cereal I ate in the morning. Nothing really happened today at school. For lunch, I had spaghetti. At recess, the score was 0-0 again. I took some shots, but I was unlucky. Thankfully, my legs felt 100% better today. When I got home, I got on code.org and coded for about 20 minutes. This is what I wrote: function loading() { var X = prompt("To start loading type Load"); setScreen("Loading"); if (X == "Load") { console.log("Load start"); } setTimeout(function() { setText("AssetLoad", "001"); setTimeout(function() { setText("AssetLoad", "002"); setTimeout(function() { setText("AssetLoad", "003"); setTimeout(function() { setText("AssetLoad", "004"); setTimeout(function() { setText("AssetLoad", "005"); }, randomNumber(1000, 3000)); }, randomNumber(1000, 3000)); }, randomNumber(1000, 3000)); }, randomNumber(1000, 3000)); }, randomNumber(1000, 3000));}loading(); What this does is it waits for 1000-3000 milliseconds, then sets a text label's text to a number. After that, I went to taekwondo. I wanted to lead...

Continue reading
  42 Hits

Soccer


Today was interesting. When I woke up, again I grabbed my breakfast, then left. Remember this post: Post. The pain in my legs felt worse today to the point that I was sort of limping. The school day went well for the most part, but recess took a bit of a turn for the worse. So, what happened was at recess, while playing soccer like usual, literally in the last five minutes, 2 people on the other team ran into my already hurting leg. One slid into me while the other jumped on me like you would in a dog pile.   So yeah, that hurt a lot, and I don't know what they were thinking but the other team members were just telling me to "Walk it off", like what? We had previously been banned from playing due to a number of "fights" among players so I guess they were thinking we might get...

Continue reading
  59 Hits

Art

Today, school was fun. When I got there, I did not get breakfast because I knew that I was not going to be waiting in the line for about half an hour just for cinnamon bread. I went straight to my classroom and like yesterday, made a thing out of another mini cereal box that I had in my backpack for whatever reason. Instead of me making a mailbox, I made a phone. First, I took the box apart, flipped the box inside out, then rebuilt the box with glue. I added pieces of paper to make the home screen and the contacts of my phone. I still need to add many more screens before I can call it finished. Then, at recess I played soccer well. I dribbled past 4 people in a row, I made a pass to assist a goal, and my team won 4-0. In art class,...

Continue reading
  47 Hits

First day back to school

Today was the first day back to school after winter break. To start off with my morning, I woke up, got ready for school, got a mini froot loops box, then left. When I got to school, I didn't get breakfast there because I had the froot loops box. I ate the cereal then I got an idea to make the box into a mailbox. I did but, I cut my finger in the process...it was worth it though. Math class, easy. Reading, normal. Lunch, good. Recess, in the middle. I fell hard on my legs, increasing the pain I had from Saturday. AIG, happy. Encore (went to the library), easy. Science, easy. Dismissal, very happy.  I'm always happy when it is the end of the school day. When I got in the car, I showed my mom the mailbox I made and told her about taking it to class with me...

Continue reading
  58 Hits

Sunday

I was planning on going to church, but I think I had overslept. For breakfast, I had a bacon breakfast crunch wrap which I had not had in forever. After I got done eating my breakfast, I worked on the traffic light from yesterday in Roblox Studio. I finished it at 1 pm since there was some bugs in the code that I could not fix in the 10 tries I tried to fix it. One bug fixed, two more came until I finally figured it out. It was so frustrating but, I got through it. I also, posted a video of how to make the traffic light on my YouTube (ask me for me channel name). At about 2:45, it was time to go to iFly. I have been doing lessons about twice a month since my birthday in October. Today, I worked on side-sliding while I was there and...

Continue reading
  53 Hits

First day in Black Belt cycle!

Today, I woke up happy to start my first day of Black Belt cycle. I did my morning routine and got ready to go to taekwondo. When I got there, I started to work on my fitness requirements since I asked to go in an hour earlier than originally planned. My mom also brought me breakfast since I didn't eat prior to leaving this morning. While doing my kicks, I hurt myself on the bag because I kept hitting the same area on the top of my foot repeatedly. I don't usually kick on the hanging bags, but I feel that was the cause, so next time I will use the ones for class instead. I had my friend Ryker help make sure I was doing my rolls and falls correctly since I can't see myself when I'm doing it. He gave me good feedback and now I know I need...

Continue reading
  69 Hits