Red Belt Down, One To Go!

I got one step closer to achieving my current goal in Taekwondo last night by earning my red belt.  I went in pretty confident about poomses 5, 6, 7 and 8 that I was to do, along with the kick test which was actually really easy.  The only part I was a little worried about was the board breaking portion, but that went fine.  The reason I wasn't sure about this part is because I would normally kick the boards with my right foot, but it is still hurting a little from when I injured it, so I had to go lefty.  Everything went well though, and I am happy to say that my form has really progressed over the months, and I feel that I am ready for the black belt test next month.

Here is poomse 8, or 발 정.  I didn't take videos of the other poomses since they are in past posts.  I hope to have my black belt test in its entirety on here though, so you can see how they all look in polished form.  This one is brand new for me, so it isn't 'perfect,' but I feel that I did pretty good.

Here is the board breaking portion.  You can see after I did the second one that it hurt like son of a gun, but was still pretty awesome to do!

I will take the black belt test on June 30th, just over a month away.  I am really excited for it, and will train more than usual over the next month so that I am fully prepared.  The test will start with poomse 8, and then they will call out random poomses (in Korean) that I will have to do right on the spot, along side several others taking the test.  So no pausing, no slowing down, just doing them as they call them out.  There will also be a sparring portion, that I can't wait for!

Another cool thing is my friend Keenan (bass player/singer in my band) has been wanting to get into Taekwondo ever since he came, but has not joined a studio yet.  I guess I have inspired him to finally come out, so he will be joining MY Taekwondo studio next week.  It's pretty cool because I came there the lone foreigner, and now number 3 is joining in!