In my taekwondo career I had to undergo many activities. One of the most important activity that I went throughis black belt level testing. The black belt level testing is a processevery student goes through in order to level up to the next Dan. This process helps a student become better in many aspects. One of the aspect that black belt level testing helps is learning about specific morals. Morals like, integrity, courtesy, self-control and perseverance. Question are asked on the morals which requires extra knowledge and deep thinking. We are encouraged to think and present on how these moral impact our personal life. In addition to this, answering and presenting these questions help us to get over the fear of public speaking, making us more confident to speak publically. For me this was one of the toughest parts in the level testing as much as it was beneficial.
Another aspectof the black belt level test is Poomsae. There are two Poomsae that we must prepare for every test. In each test there is Koryo a Poomsae that appears in all the Belt level tests. Koryo is a very difficult form that requires a lot of concentration and flexibilityand we must practice it often to perform better. The second is another Poomsae called Palgwe. The Palgwe Poomsae changes in every test with different techniques. The difficulty level of this Poomsae increases with every black belt level. Overall both of these Poomsae’s help with polishing our techniques and improving our concentration and memory.
Kicking technique is another technique that we need to perform in every belt test. The main kick in all the kicking techniques is the backspin hook kick. After we reach black belt we practice this kick a lot.Like the Palgwe Poomsae this kicking techniques becomes tougher as we go through every level. We have to go from a roundhouse kick and a back spin hook kick all the way to a 360 jump back spin hook kick. Overall these techniques helped me improve the backspin hook kick and also pushed me to try to stretch more, something that is very tough for me.
Self-defense is an important aspect in every level test too. In every test we have a partner and we need to demonstrate our self-defense technique with them. This helps us to learn how to defend us in any given situation.
Breaking is another activity that we need to prepare for the black belt testing. Breaking occurs at the end of the testing and we plan for it in prior classes. How it works is that in the first level we start with one board and do the main technique which is the jump side kick, then as we progress wekeep
addingadditional boards. After the first test it is our choice to choose which kick we want to perform. In my opinion we should ask Master Hwang for what your breaking technique we should choose because he knows our strength and skills and he givesus the best opinion for the breaking technique. Breaking helped me because it needs a lot of concentration and it gives me a lot of mental optimism. Overall these are what black belt level testing comprises of. Each of the elements of black belt testing is focused on developing a strong mastery of taekwondo skills and a confident personality. For me, the black belt level test helped me become much better at taekwondo both mentally and physically.