It has been one month since I started Tang Soo Do. Three days ago I tested for my orange belt and passed. Congratulations me! The master brought us down to earth by saying that this was the easiest of the tests we will face earning our belts.

The morning of the test I was a bit anxious. All the things that we have been learning were flying through my head. Form 1, form 2, hand techniques 1-5, foot techniques 1-5 and self defense techniques 1-5. It’s almost like ordering Chinese food. “I’ll take hand technique number 3 please.” Ok, that was a bad joke. I needed to calm myself down so I spent a portion of the morning going through each aspect of the test in meditation. Thankfully Sue kept the boys rather calm so I could focus.

About forty five minutes before I had to be at the dojang I started drinking water and ate a Clif Bar. Clif Bars seem to give me just enough energy to make it through a karate session. When it was time to go I prayed then made my journey to the test.

When I got to Robinson’s Martial Arts Institute I saw that there were many more spectators than people testing. Normally that might make someone nervous but training sessions normally have a number of spectators so you get used to people watching you. I dressed in my dobak and headed to the back area of the studio to stretch and talk with some of the others that were testing. A couple of the black belts gave some encouraging words which definitely made me feel better. The call came for us to line up so the testing can begin.

Master tries to diffuse some of the nerves but it appears many students are still nervous. Master Robinson called the names of the green and brown belts so they can line up. He then dismissed them in favor of having the white belts test first. Each of the white belts were called to line up. We started off with the normal calisthenics then went through our kicks and blocks. We then went through the two forms we needed to know for the test. I think I started sweating a little after the second form was done. We then broke up into three groups of two and went through each of our kicks, ten kick for each leg, for each type of kick. My legs were feeling a little like jelly. After the kicks were finished we displayed our foot, hand and self defense techniques with a black belt attacker. I’m not sure if I did much “kihap”-ping during the other parts of the test but I think I made up for it now. I almost felt obnoxiously loud. It certainly is more exciting attacking/blocking a person than the air.

After some words of wisdom from Master Robinson we sat down and got to watch the green and brown belts go through their test. Their test was very similar in structure to ours however they had plenty more to remember and exhibit. When they were done we all lined up and received our belts. So far learning Tang Soo Do has been a great experience. I can feel stress leaving me, a confidence in some things I was anxious about and my body feels like it is getting into shape.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 13th, 2011 at 9:29 pm and is filed under Daily Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.