I made it!

I did it! I passed my black belt test this evening. And so did my 12 year old son, and he tested not as a junior but as a full black belt (normally you have to be 13 or over to do that).

The last few weeks have been quite stressful. I had watched part of someone else's test before, so sort of knew what to expect, but I was rather nervous about it all. I have been studying the manual, learning the theory (such as the history of Taekwondo and the meanings of the patterns) and working on the physical side of it in class and at home.

Today I managed to eat a little but the butterflies were getting in the way.

K and I arrived at the dojang just after 6.30pm, expecting a bit of a wait, but as it turned out the examiner had whizzed through the previous belt colours and was already testing the blue belts, so we were next. We started our test at about 7.30 and finished at about 9.45pm.

We had to perform nine patterns - I made a mistake in the very first one, but thankfully most of the rest were fine. Then we did pad kicking, then step sparring (which is stepping back and forth with set attacks and defences, not hard, but challenges the memory because there are 27 combinations to remember, plus you have to have prepared some of your own.

We had to do self defence techniques, including getting away from two guys, one holding each arm. We had to put on the protective equipment for the sparring - I even had my mouth guard in, because things can get a little crazy when those black belts start going at you. Actually, it was a lot of fun, the atmosphere was good - I did get bopped on the nose at one point, but it's OK now!

At the end was the board-breaking and theory. I was able to recite the history of Taekwondo perfectly and answer the examiner's other questions. K was a little slow off the mark with a couple of the questions - long silences while I willed him to say something.

At first, I didn't have a lot of success with the board-breaking. When I tried the 3 board side kick, the back board broke but the others didn't. The examiner checked the stack of boards and found that some were way heavier than others - they hadn't been cut in advance and dried out so they were absorbing the impact rather than snapping in half. When he chose the lighter boards, I was able to break two at a time with a knife hand and two at a time with my side kick, and one with a spinning back kick. I didn't succeed on the 360 back kick or the flying side kick. K broke most of his boards.

Because of the shortage of good boards, we didn't have to do the 4 way kick or the double board break in the air with the feet.

The test went by fast. It didn't seem as gruelling as I'd been led to believe. There are enough less active segments where you can get your breath back. So I will get a plain black belt at first, but in a few weeks I'll have a new dobok (uniform) and a black belt with my name embroidered on it.

Of course, I can't relax just because I achieved this rank. This is only First Dan of a total of nine. I am now an Assistant Instructor and not only will I be helping to teach others in class but I'll have three new patterns to learn. However, the Second Dan test won't be for at least 30 months, so there's plenty of time.

I really must go to bed now - I have a headache, and whilst I am only aware of a scraped ankle (from a board) and a bruised hand (from a board) at the moment, I may wake up in the morning with a few aches and pains. It's worth it, however, to know that I passed my test!

Oh, and my friend Anne came to watch (yay, my cheerleader, minus the pompoms) and took a bunch of photos with my camera. I haven't looked at them yet. I'll upload them in the morning. For now, it's time to try and get some sleep.