Taekwondo black belt celebration

June 26, 2009 9:44 AM

A coworker is testing for her black belt in taekwondo this weekend, and I'm looking for ideas of how we can celebrate her achievement at the office.

Earning a black belt seems like a very significant accomplishment. Assuming she will get it, we'd like to do something at the office to congratulate her. Gift suggestions, or anything else that would be appropriate for the occasion would be greatly appreciated. It's a pretty laid-back office, so decorum isn't really a huge concern. We'd just like to come up with something better than the standard cake-and-a-card office celebration. Thanks!

posted by Balonious Assault to Human Relations (9 answers total)

Dress up like ninjas and attack her.
posted by Loto at 9:47 AM on June 26, 2009 [3 favorites]

Order a sheet cake. Make them ice it so it looks a wooden plank. Have "break" the cake with a well-placed punch or kick.
posted by kkokkodalk at 10:01 AM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

A cinderblock would also work as a cake idea.
posted by Decimask at 10:04 AM on June 26, 2009

I don't know how much you want to spend, but you can pitch in and get her nice new dobok.
posted by ignignokt at 10:13 AM on June 26, 2009

As a lapsed blackbelt in TKD, the most annoying thing is for people to come up and talk about how "You can so beat me up now! Here, what if I do this? Okay what if I do this? Ha! I poked you and you couldn't defend it! Maybe I should have a black belt!" Seriously, don't let people do that. Keep it focused on the accomplishment and how cool that is.

A neat martial arts-themed cake would be good. So would be renting her favorite martial arts movie (or just one of the better goofy Jackie Chan ones) and having an office movie afternoon.
posted by olinerd at 10:15 AM on June 26, 2009

And now seeing ignignokt's suggestion -- if you do that, pitch in on a gift card instead of the dobok itself. A lot of different martial arts schools have different rules about what uniforms you can wear -- there are different jackets, different ways of wearing stripes, different colors -- and it's not a good idea to invest in one you're not sure will be appropriate.
posted by olinerd at 10:16 AM on June 26, 2009

Best answer: There is a Far Side comic that showed some people training at a martial arts dojo while in the background hostile aliens that looked like boards and brick walls were about to attack the earth. We used to have it hanging in our dojo and I laughed every time I walked by it. A framed copy of that comic would be a great gift if you could come up with it and if she has the sense of humor to appreciate it. Although that might be tough to do short notice.
posted by Silvertree at 10:51 AM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

How about a new bag for carrying her martial arts stuff. Maybe something like this.
posted by Joleta at 1:36 PM on June 26, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions. Best answer goes to the one we liked the best, but they were all good and very much appreciated. I wish I could have convinced everyone to dress up like ninjas and attack her.
posted by Balonious Assault at 3:34 PM on June 30, 2009