My oldest son and I participated in a 2-day test at our taekwondo studio a little less than two weeks ago, hoping to earn our Kukkiwon 1st degree black belts. He’s been a student since he was three and a half, so that’s eight years of training for him. I started attending class about three and a half years ago with zero intention of doing anything but enjoy the workouts. The last of my bruises are healing that I’m not sure how I got and my muscles are finally not screaming at me when I roll out of bed in the morning. There’s still some fatigue that catches me off guard though. My friend Rachel, who tested with us, said it was the equivalent of running a marathon, so it’ll take more than a week to fully recover. I think she’s right!
I wanted to write out a rundown of what our test consisted of for anyone who’s curious; since we spent the better part of 2021 preparing for it. We were attending classes five to six times a week and training on our own in between. There were nine of us testing total and a bunch of us would get together on a regular basis to train and help each other out where needed. There was one other mom testing with me, Rachel, and one other 20-something adult who didn’t train with us. The rest were comprised of kids ages 11 to 15, two of whom were our own sons.
It was truly a team effort.
Yes, I created this poster. I do most of the graphic design for our studio. ;-)
So, what went into this test?
Back in the spring, we had to submit a “Black Belt Letter of Intent;” essentially a one-page essay explaining “why I want to be a black belt.” Then we had the rest of the summer to compose a five-page essay documenting our black belt journey; including mention of each of the five tenets of taekwondo (integrity, courtesy, self-control, perseverance, and indomitable spirit). The last essay required was one-page with our plans and goals for beyond the black belt test.
Throughout the year, we were required to assist in teaching taekwondo classes for 80 hours and also complete 20 hours of community service.
For candidates under age 18, they needed to get a letter of recommendation from a teacher and from their parents. My brother-in-law, who has a black belt in jiujitsu, wrote letters for both my son and me. While he may not know much about taekwondo, he understands the work and pride that goes into earning a black belt. I technically didn’t need a letter of recommendation, but his words totally made me cry. My son also got a letter from his 5th grade teacher since his current 6th grade teachers don’t really know him very well yet.
All of our essays, service hour sheets, and letters had to be printed and organized in a binder so our masters could read everything easily. These were due the 1st of October.
Lastly, we all had to compose a one-minute video documenting our black belt journey and it had to include voice over. I got some help honing my Adobe Premiere Pro skills from one of our awesome instructors, Jessa, when making both my video and my kid’s. Having to narrow down eight years of memories into a 90-second video was really, really hard!
Jessa is a film student and made a short documentary about Rachel and me a few months ago. I don’t know if she’s planning to add to it now that our test is over, but maybe??
Here’s a rundown of what our test consisted of:
Friday was all about pushing us past our limits physically. We had a long series of exercises where we completed as many reps as we could in the time limit. There was maybe a minute in between each exercise. For the times we alternated with a partner, we got a slightly longer break. All kicks had to be either belt level (on the bags), or shoulder level (on handheld targets).
My husband and my sister cheering us on!
Physical Test, Friday, 6:30-8:45pm:
5 minutes of jumping jacks (no stopping)
2 minutes of hand-release pushups (chest all the way to the floor, hands pop up)
2 minutes of sit-ups
2 minutes of burpees
2 minutes of air squats
2 minutes of v-ups (Google it, they suck)
2 minutes of flutter kicks
2 minutes of jumping squats
1 minute jumping front snap kicks on a target (alternating legs)
1 minute axe kicks
1 minute spinning hook kicks (right leg)
1 minute spinning hook kicks (left leg)
2 minute water break
1 minute roundhouse kicks
1 minute tornado kicks
1 minute jumping back kicks
1 minute butterfly kicks
1 minute repeat butterfly kicks with higher number of reps
1 minute butterfly burpees (drop into a burpee, pushup, then two roundhouse kicks on the bag)
1 minute mountain climbers, short sprint, 10 butterfly kicks (this one almost made me throw up)
1 minute water break
kicking combinations 1-10 on targets in under 2 minutes
speed Poomsae, Taeguek 1-8 in 2 minutes (hilarious to watch, we all looked awful)
My kiddo toughing it out!
Saturday was all about the technical side of the sport. We had to show how well we know all ten punching combinations, ten kicking combinations, four weapons forms, Taegeuk 1-8 Poomsae, and Koryo (1st Dan Black Belt Poomsae). Poomsae are choreographed sets of strikes, blocks, and kicks that mimic an attack and are performed with precision and power. Kind of like Tai-chi, but faster and more powerful. We also had to demonstrate four different weapons forms. Thankfully these weren’t about speed, all of these had to be demonstrated with power AND synchronously with the group. This was my strongest skill, but it was NOT an easy thing to teach the young teens!
Then we all donned our sparring gear and had to demonstrate an application of one Taeguek form with sparring gear and full contact.
Next up was sparring and then self-defense. Sparring is pretty straightforward. Self-defense, not so much. It’s essentially you versus three attackers for two minutes and very few rules. The goal is to keep fighting and to survive. We obviously aren’t aiming to knock someone out, or actually break knees, but we are expected to shove, punch, and kick. There are kicks to the groin, throws, and lots of yelling.
The last part was board breaking. We all had to create a routine with eight boards and demonstrate our skills at both setting up board holders and executing the breaks in one shot. In between each of these routines, we all watched each other’s black belt journey videos.
My sister surprised me by flying from LA to join us for the 5k and cheer us on during testing.
Saturday morning, 8am start
5k run in under 45 minutes
1 hour written test on taekwondo history and theory
break for lunch
Technical Test, Saturday, 1:30pm start
Punching combinations 1-10, both sides in sync
Kicking combinations 1-10, both sides, in sync
Poomsae, Taegeuk 1-8 (color belt forms) in sync
Poomsae, Koryo in sync
Individual Poomsae, Koryo and 2 mystery forms
Bo staff form in sync
Nunchucks form in sync
Kamas form in sync
Eskrima form in sync
4 minute break for water and to put on sparring gear
Application of Poomsae, Taegeuk of choice with full contact
Tag-team sparring, 20 minutes total, multiple rounds
1-minute sparring rounds, x2 per candidate
Self-defense, 1 vs 3 for 2 minutes, full contact
2 minute break to remove sparring gear
board breaking, 2 speed foot breaks, 2 speed hand breaks, 3 power foot breaks, 1 power hand break (power vs speed is determined by how the board is held)
inspirational videos in between each person board breaking
My favorite parts were Application of Poomsae and the 5k (even though I still don’t love running). The weather was chilly, but we managed to avoid the rain that came later, and the fall foliage was incredible. Application of Poomsae was fun. It shows how well we really know and understand the forms and it was fun to add drama to our kicks and punches.
Surprisingly, I kind of enjoyed the tag-team sparring too. Sparring, as a whole, is really hard and scary for me. I am constantly afraid of twisting a knee or rolling an ankle, all while trying to avoid getting kicked in the head. The tag-team format was really fun and fast-paced with everyone swapping in and out pretty quickly. It let us all see each other spar and I was surprised that I enjoyed it. I may have audibly whimpered when one of our masters ended it with, “that was a great sparring warmup, now let’s do some do real sparring.”
My least favorite parts were pretty much all of Friday and self-defense. Friday was really hard for me. I experienced dizziness and nausea at a few points and was proud that I didn’t actually throw up. It pushed me to the very end of my stamina and endurance… and then pushed some more. I was also really, really nervous, so that made it hard for me to calm down and actually rest in between exercises.
In my self-defense exercise, I was terrified of falling down. The sparring chestguard (hogu) is quite long on my torso, and I knew that if I fell down, it would be tough for me to get back up again. Then, one of my attackers got overzealous with a padded bat and was whipping my head as hard as he could repeatedly. At one point I shouted “what the fuck?!” and I heard one of our masters ask him to stop with the bat. In a real-life scenario, if that had been a real bat, I would’ve died after the first blow. He was hitting that hard. He was also hitting me from behind while I fended off a different attacker and, while it didn’t hurt physically, it made me incredibly angry because it was not applicable to the exercise. I haven’t been that furious in a very long time and it took me a few minutes to get my emotions in check after my two minutes were up. I did NOT want to cry in front of that guy. In the end, I managed to stay on my feet the whole time and that was a victory for me.
I was so disappointed in my board breaking. I didn’t break all of the boards on the first try and only one of them was because my board holder didn’t do a good job. I think my brain and my body were just FRIED by that point. I really should’ve practiced the breaks more often than I did and requested to practice with real boards.
Now we wait. Any day now, our masters will reach out to set up times to meet with us one-on-one to go over our results. I have been reassured that testing is based on individual skill, fitness, and training, not comparing one candidate to another. But it’s human nature to compare ourselves to others and I can’t help but wonder where I may have fallen short.
For the last couple of weeks, it’s been tough to settle my mind now that the test is over. I haven’t been able to sleep well these past few weeks. I remember a little part of the test and go over and over how I could’ve done it better or even just differently. What did we miss in training that we should’ve practiced more? I’m very confident in a few areas, others I’m just not sure.
Either way, I’m super proud of all of us. My kiddo kicked butt and worked hard throughout and I’m proud of myself for sticking with this and not quitting when it got hard. My husband wrote a long post on Facebook just before our test and this line rang so true for me, “Her body has tried to shut this down many times, but her mind has managed to overcome every hurdle thus far.” #IceAndIbuprofenFTW