Personal Narrative: First Dan

1st Dan In The Federation

When I was fourteen years old I became a 1st Dan in the World Traditional Tang Soo Do Federation. I had been training for this day since I was four years old and after ten years of hard work I finally received my Black Belt. It was one of the proudest days of my life since my dad was my instructor. He had been training me for all of these years and martial arts was a huge part of my life. Martial arts never changed my life, it was my life. I had been training for as long as I could remember. I grew up in my dad 's dojo. He has been doing martial arts since he was a kid too, so naturally when he became a master (4th Dan) he started his own martial arts school. From a young age he started teaching me the basics of

My eyes flew wide as my dad poked his head into the bedroom I had slept in. He told me to get up and get ready. I already had my dobok (uniform) in my bag as well as my sparring gear. I ate a light breakfast and we drove to the convention center where the testing was being held. I was the only person there testing for my 1st Dan (Black Belt), but there were four other men testing for their 4th Dan (Master). The testing would last for hours, and include a wide variety of things. First the endurance testing required me to run three miles, do pushups and crunches, as well as do a hundred kicks with each leg and a hundred strikes with each arm. Next, the written test asked about history, philosophy and creeds of the

At last the physical testing began. This portion of the testing required me to go through all eight of the Martial Arts Forms back to back, perfectly. Any mistake during the Forms would mean failure. The Forms are made up of differing movements, strikes, kicks and blocks. They begin with basics and become more complex in both form and length as they progress. Next I stood in front of the Grand Master as he called out strikes in Korean and would evaluate my technique as I performed them. After that came the sparring. I had to fight one opponent, a grown man, one on one. Then I fought two, then three and so on until I had to fight eight simultaneously. This wasn 't like the movies where the good guy beats up the bad guys, this was real life, where the fourteen year old has to take a beating and keep his cool. Now we were all wearing gloves, so it wasn 't that dangerous, but I did take a beating. For my last sparring test, I had to fight one of the men who was there testing for his 4th Dan. I was used to fighting my 7th Dan father, so I knew what to expect. Sometimes martial arts isn 't about winning, it 's about just about fighting. The man who wins a fight with pride and anger didn 't win at all. But the man who fights with grace and character wins every time, no matter the outcome