I've spent a great deal of time here on ER while earnestly avoiding starting to work on my taxes.
I'm preparing to commence seriously considering thinking about earnestly starting to evade working on my taxes.
I was worried about procrastinating, but I'll get to that tomorrow.
6 PM tonight starts our taekwondo black belt test. Candidates only, no spectators. There are approximately 16 candidates-- a few have yet to pass the pushups or the run, but they have six hours left to remedy that situation. Everyone's been training for at least four years (I'm closing in on seven but I've been a black belt for two). The youngest candidate is 10 years old (a Type I diabetic to boot), one mother is participating with both of her teen sons, three others of us are going for our 2nd or 3rd dans.
As black belts we're expected to set the standards for doing forms & kicks. The dojang's owner tells us up front that although he and his instructors have spent years working with us, he knows that some of us will only perfect our forms when everyone else is depending on us to execute them flawlessly as a synchronous team. So that's how he runs the test: peer pressure.
At the start of the first part of the test, each of us candidates is assigned (at least) one monitor to watch our execution. We begin with the simplest of the eight Taeguk forms. We need to do it three times perfectly, and together, before we'll move on to the next one. If anyone's feet or hands are out of position, let alone missing a move or too far ahead/behind, then we start the form over. Since everyone has at least one monitor it's hard to hide your mistakes. It'll probably take us 45 minutes just to build up 3x flawless simultaneous executions of the first form... and then there's just seven forms left. Focus.
At the end of that part of the test (probably about four-five hours) we take a short pizza break. (Some of us more senior candidates have learned to show up on a dose of 800 mg of ibuprofen and to top it off during the break.) Then we begin the second part of the forms test: performing all eight forms flawlessly in sequence. If there's a mistake on the last part of the eighth form then the accomplishment of the first seven forms doesn't count-- we start climbing the ladder all over again. You can imagine what the pressure does to one's focus when we get to the eighth form on the 15th or 20th attempt.
This is the 17th year the dojang has done this test, and it typically takes 6-8 hours. Smaller groups are better but younger kids can be a wild card. (So can ER geezers.) Two years ago I sweated off three pounds, and that was after the pizza with two quarts of water. I figure we'll be wrapping it up at around 1 AM and enjoying an ibuprofen chaser, I'll be showering by 2 AM, and I'll be sleeping shortly after that. I'll spend Sunday stretching... and more ibuprofen. I hear there's some sort of sporting event on TV but I don't think I'll get around to that.
Next week we'll have the public portion of the ceremony for family & friends-- we do the forms, of course, and we follow that up with fancier-than-usual demonstrations of board breaks and brick breaks. At the end of it I'll be wearing a slightly fancier black belt than I am now.
Two years from now I'll be eligible for the 3rd dan test. I'm going to have to think about that one for a while. Martial arts have proven essential for speed & reflexes, to say nothing of flexibility, but it doesn't get any easier.
I'm glad I passed all my qualifiers a couple months ago. My test preps this afternoon consist mainly of taking a long nap...
It disappears fast!
I use only the leaves.
