I know it’s been almost a week ago but I spent almost 3 gruelling hours working for my red belt. I don’t know which was harder, the 120 push ups and sit ups or the sparring.
There were 5 of us going for our next belts. One yellow stripe, two blue stripes, a black belt and me. I thought at the end of it my chest was going to explode. So here’s what I did to get that much closer the big black one:
1. Say Master and Instructor using South Korean terminology. No problem there especially as I bought my book with me and looked it 10 minutes before.
2. About 45 minutes showing our stuff by doing kicks and combinations. I had more stamina for this than when I did my red stripe. Must have been the bag of chips I had for lunch. I even did the upsetter punch, which we don’t really do in class.
3. Then we had one step sparring. I didn’t know who I would face in this one so I turned to You Tube the night before for help and it worked. I faced the person who was going for his black belt and I remembered what I needed to do. I was determined not to be a big girl’s blouse and say “I don’t know what to do next, help me!” As part of this section I had to also get out of a front and side head lock. Listen, stamping on the foot first works well as a first defence in both instances. That stuns them and then you could anything else to drop them and… run away. I also had to get out of two bear hug. This one works with a drop and force of the glutes. This also stuns your enemy.
4. Then came the sparring. Oh boy! So My first round of 2 minutes was with the guy who was going for his black belt. I thought he was going to take it easier with me because I was a lady. Fat chance! He got me with some good kicks but I defended my head and kept my guard up because I had some near misses to the head. I then had 2 more rounds with the guys going for their blue stripes and just about survived that. The final round was two against me. I must add here that I was the only female who sparred that evening. My opponents were a green stripe and the brother of the Tae Kwon Do World Champion, who is a 2nd Dan black belt. Now this round was for just one minute but all I could see legs coming and me from the left and legs from the night. I managed to not get my head taken off by keeping my guard up and running around the dojo. “Chicken”, I hear you cry. Listen mate, them guys took no prisoners in that match.
After my exercises, which I still felt after a few days, I did a jumping back kick to break a board and I did it first time. Yay!
When it was all over I felt euphoric, mainly because I survived and came away with my teeth. Just another year or 18 months countdown to my next belt. Stay tuned!!!
Red Stripe to Black 