There are many parts to the level testing that black belts take every 3-4 months. One of those steps is getting to black belt. One must go through white, yellow, purple, orange, green, senior green, blue, senior blue, brown senior brown, red, senior red, and danbo belt before getting to black belt. Going through these belts will take approximately 3 years (barring any failures to complete belt tests). There are 4 parts to the testing, which will be mentioned below. The first part is the Questioning part. Students are given a packet on the questions at the beginning of a level, and are expected to be able to answer the questions at the end of the level, which is the level test. The questions are based on the “theme” of the level, which is a virtue such as loyalty, leadership, etc. The packet consists of a story on the theme and the questions. While there are many questions, only few will be asked of every student, each one being asked a different set of questions.
The second part of the testing is Kodea poomse. Everybody must perform this set of form’s learnt in class to show mastery of the poomse. It is a series of kicks, punches, and blocks. Combinations of these make the poomse. This poomse must be performed every level testing for degree 1. The next poomse on the other hand, changes every level.
The third part of the testing is the pal gwe poomse. This is another series of the forms that must be performed every level testing, this is a different series than the Kodea though, and there is a new one every level that students learn. As students go to higher levels, the difficulty of these poomse’s increases, while the Kodea stays the same.
The fourth and final part of the testing is the breaking. This is where students perform a routine where they break boards continuously. The amount of boards students must break increases by 1 every level. If a student fails to break a board they must restart the routine. Students get 4 tries (some are given a fifth grace try), then must do retesting if they fail. The recap is that there are 4 parts to the testing. The questioning is where students are asked questions about the essence of Taekwondo. The Kodea poomse is a series of Taekwondo forms. The pal gwe poomse is a different series of forms. And finally, the breaking is where students perform a routine of breaking boards with different punches and kicks. This is all that is needed to understand black belt level testing.