It was a test four years in the making and Cochrane’s taekwondo master Cam Macdonald passed admirably.

Macdonald, who is the owner of Cochrane’s Trinity Taekwon-Do Club, earned his fifth-degree black belt during a two-day evaluation in Edmonton Feb. 19-20.

After a taekwondo martial artist progresses through the colour belt system to the black belt he or she can then chase a higher level of black belt all the way up to the ninth degree; however, practitioners must wait the number of years corresponding with the degree before attempting the test.

“The fifth degree to me is a great accomplishment,” Macdonald said. “It’s a fairly significant level. You start to see a lot of practitioners filter out from first degree to the higher levels.”

The test wasn’t easy, as both Macdonald and his longtime training partner Aimee Maund were put through a pattern evaluation, a board-breaking test, a theory examination and a demonstration in front of roughly 400 people.

For his board break, Macdonald opted to break six one-inch boards with a spinning back-kick.

“My power-break was done with the heel of my foot,” said Macdonald, who broke seven boards in competition a few years ago. “It’s a pretty strong part of my foot and I have trained on it for years so it didn’t really hurt. I did it my first try, it always hurts more on the second try.”

For their demonstration the next day, Macdonald and Maund were required to each break 25 boards total and demonstrate 12 self-defence techniques.

Although he had never performed such a demonstration of such depth, Macdonald said he remained confident and everything went smoothly.

“I don’t really get nervous, I have been doing taekwondo for such a long time,” he said.

And the 25-year-old doesn’t have any intentions of slowing down now.

“As long I continue training and am healthy there’s no reason why I wouldn’t go after that sixth-degree belt.”

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