Becoming a Black Belt Is NOT Easy
Adia Singhania
First Degree Decided Black Belt
Age 9
Becoming a black belt is not easy. It takes hardwork and commitment. Being a black belt means to me that you have to have good leadership, high self esteem, and to have a good attitude. I want to be a black belt because there are more challenging moves and sparring.
I like to be challenged and getting a black belt was a long journey with many challenges along the way. From white belt to black belt, my self confidence has been boosted because I have become a better communicator, I’m stronger, my kicks are higher, my sparring is better, and I believe in myself.
At first I didn’t know what taekwondo was until my parents took me there as a surprise. After I took a few classes, I started to like it even more. Like everybody else I started out as a white belt. As a white belt I learned a new form called key bon. It was fun working and memorizing it. When I took my first belt test I passed and even got a nice new yellow belt. When I became a yellow belt the expectations were higher. We had to learn new combinations and harder kicks. Yellow belt was also the belt when I had my first tournament: I got to see lots of other dull colors do their forms and do something called sparring. When I did my form and combinations I got two gold medals!!
The next belt test I got was the orange belt. When I got this belt I was so excited because I got to do sparring for the first time. I had to choose a bag and ordered gear: I chose hot pink for the color of my bag. When I first sparred I was a little scared because I didn’t know how hard the other belt colors would hit me. Luckily they were nice and I had some fun times sparring. As months went by, I soon got to become a blue Belt. I had become stronger from all of the classes I had been taking it now it was time to learn how to break a plastic board. I saw the brown belts in my class break boards after class, I couldn’t wait until I could do the same!
After my blue belt testing I finally got my brown belt! Now I can start breaking boards. When it came around to Christmas time, Reveal had their special sale on about everything they offered. I took a good look around, and then I saw it. It was the leadership club stand. My mom took me over to the stand and sign me up for the classes. I was fitted for some cool weapons like the sword and bow staff. My favorite part of leadership class was that we had permission to lineup class without being told or asking. Another thing I like about leadership was the board break challenge, though I only broke the blackboard once with a spin sidekick.
The leadership class made time fly and it was once again belt testing. I got to use a round kick and sidekick to break my board. I passed my brown belt test and now I was a red belt. Red was the color for danger. When I was a red belt, I learned a form called Chung Moo. In the second half of the form, there was a flying sidekick. A flying sidekick is where you run, jump, and kick in the air. Another thing that was new to me as a red belt was the fit test.
When you are becoming a black belt or if you are a black belt you had to get a score of 300. The fit test included push-ups, situps, punches, round kick jab cross combo, and a round kick combo. Soon enough it was time for my black belt testing!! We started out with the fit test and I got a 388. Then we moved on to our forms and I felt like I aced it. After that it was sparring and I felt that I had gotten a lot better than when I had started. That Wednesday I was waiting for my name to get called out and sooner or later they did and I even got a plaque!
I have had a fun journey of becoming a black belt: learning stuff like balance, speed, power, and focus. Plus I got to learn leadership skills like self-esteem and discipline. Because of taekwondo, I am no longer shy, and I speak up more often. I can talk confidently to strangers, and I’m not afraid to show people what I know or what I’m good at. Though I’m a black belt, it will still be a long, long, long time until the journey is over!
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