Grading

Hey just came back from My Taekwondo grading today. It was damn scary man. Well its not like I've never been to a TKD grading before but this is "THE" grading. The one that seperates the man from the boys in TKD. Yes you name it. The black belt grading. 5 of us from Singapore Poly came to try our best to earn that black belt. Edmund, Rena, Qiao Zhen, Hairoul and of coz me. Never been to a black belt grading before. Figured It would be like any normal colour belt grading but I was wrong. The atmosphere was much much more frightening. A single mistake is all it takes to blow your chances of earning that black belt. The criterias are much more strict. The grading was held at Toa Payoh sports hall. Where future black belts from all over Singapore come together to try their luck. Upon entering the hall, I felt like all eyes are on me. Accessing me from top to bottom. The night before had trouble sleeping. Woke up once at 3.45am and once at 4 plus. Had set the alarm to go off at 10am instead at 9.57am I was fully awake.

BAck to the hall. Change to my gee and did a little warming up. A few minutes later we were called to assemble and were sort out according to alphabetical order by our names. I was lucky to be place in the same detail as Hairoul, My long time TKD buddy. Almost all of our gradings we were place together. It's funny how we always end up together. Grading, Sparring, anything. And the best think about having a buddy with you is that you can "act" or "wayang" a bit. We always synchonise our pattern and the best part comes during sparring. The way we spar, well lets just say we even make hollywood proud. Well thanks bro. If it weren't for you. I wouldn't make it this far in TKD.

The long wait was actually the worst. The antipation was killing both me and hairoul. But I guess its the same with the rest of the future black belts. My detail was detail 21. When it was my turn finally. Four of us went out and position ourselves in front of the 3 judges. The commander gave the command for us to start our pattern and both hairoul and me did it in unison. Panic a little at first but I thought about my parents im my head and calm down. Thats my secret, whenever I'm scared or panicking. I will think of my parents and I will finally calm down and have this drive to continue what I'm doing. The pattern when fine. Next was the sparring section. NOthing to comment except that my first sparring partner was a 5th Dan black belt. What luck. But luckily he pull back his kicks. 2nd sparring partner was of coz Hairoul and lastly was a small frame chinese guy. Felt a little guilty coz I kinda kick him in the face. But his ok with it. Apologise to him after the sparring session.

Overall we did ok. Well our supporters said we did ok. My instructor said we did ok. So thats why I say we did ok. Well lets just leave it till 21 January. The propose date for the results to be released. After the grading the guys went to Bishan to eat. Only ate a piece of chicken coz mum and dad apparently cooked crabs for dinner today. So im saving my stomach for that.

So here I am just came back from grading, eaten and showered. Am feeling a little tired now so i guess I'll just sign off now. bye

P.S. Apologise for a pretty crappy and not so good english entry. Am listening/talking to my sister while typing this and I am feeling very sleepy.

-blog out-