As a traditional martial art, all students follow a set syllabus to develop knowledge and skills in Taekwondo in order to move up through the Kup grades (coloured belts) until reaching the coveted black belt. A further separate syllabus for black belts then follows to progress up the Dan (degree) grades. All gradings look to assess competence in a variety of areas including traditional Patterns, basic hand and feet techniques used for attack and defence, sparring techniques, power tests (using breaking boards as well as theory, all of which get progressively more difficult as students move up through the grades).