Mastering Taekwondo
By: Christopher Ho
It was a bright Saturday morning when I accomplished something that I never thought I could do. I was introduced to taekwondo by one of my school friends when I was around 6 years old, and I would go to classes to train every Tuesday and Thursday. Every couple of months, there would be a test, where we could achieve the next color belt. The belts ranked from white to yellow to green to blue to purple to brown to red and then finally black. I got all the way to a red belt, but then I stopped wanting to do taekwondo. I started to go to fewer and fewer practices, not really caring about it at all. This was mainly because I kind of got bored of it, and I just didn't like the practices in general anymore.
With some convincing from my parents, we decided that I should achieve a black belt, and then I could be done with taekwondo. I went back to practicing with the masters, and even though I would often forget what to do, I tried to push through. The practices contained learning different kinds of sequences of kicks and punches with partners, stretching, and trying out different weapons. In some practices, we would also do sparring or solo activities. It was at this point that I really hated going to classes, but since I was so far into it and the test was soon, I had to finish. I learned different techniques and how to use a bo, a staff weapon to block, thrust, and strike opponents. This is useful against most other martial arts weapons. The test for a black belt included sparring, individual showcases, training, and sleeping at the “dojo.”
The afternoon of the big test finally came, and I was feeling nervous. In previous years I took tests to rank up for each belt, and in those tests, we performed sequences of moves and techniques and broke a couple of wood boards. The black belt test would be something completely new to me and something that I hadn’t experienced before.
It was a bright sunny morning at a local park in Foster City. The weather wasn’t too hot or too cold, and I was feeling a little tired. The test started off fine in the beginning, with everyone participating in the test gathering together to first explain how it was going to go, and then a quick warmup, which had nothing to do with taekwondo. The next part was the same as all the other tests I took, just performing sequences of moves and techniques in a group, but of course, all the parents were watching, making it more nerve-racking as I didn’t want to mess up. Although I forgot some moves and had to copy other people, messed up a couple of times, and was pretty tense, I thought I ended up doing okay.
This part took a lot longer than I thought, as there were over 100 people. We had to wait for everyone to perform “forms,” which are sequences of punches, kicks, and more in a specific order around an area. Everyone also had to perform forms for their weapons. As part of the test, everyone went home to have dinner and then had to sleep over at the dojo, but luckily one of my friends named Kevin was also testing for a black belt and we set up our sleeping bags together on the ground. It took a while to sleep, and I woke up several times in the night because I was thirsty, but I didn’t have any water next to me. I also didn’t want to bother people by walking across the room to the water fountain, so I just had to live with it and sleep to try and forget about needing water. We got woken up pretty early, around 5 or 6, and it was cold outside. I was pretty afraid, as I didn’t like sparring, but that was all we were going to do in the morning, other than some training. We finished the test by lunch. I don’t know if I make it sound easy, but it was pretty difficult for me, especially just being 10 years old. I felt really good about myself after the test, thinking that I did pretty well.
The ceremony came later that year where I received a black belt with my name on it, a certificate, and a verification card. It was all fun, and we got to take pictures with everyone and talk to all the masters. This is important to my identity because it’s something I am really proud of and can talk about to other people, as it was something I was passionate about while having something somewhat impressive to show for it. Although I stopped doing taekwondo, I think it was great that I learned and might be useful in the future.
