Green Belt Test

On Friday March 16th 2012, I tested for my green belt in Combat Hapkido. When I arrived at the school, the atmosphere was tense and expectant like it always is on testing day. I stayed to watch part of the little dragons Tae Kwon Do testing, as I always love watching the little ones show off what they've learned. But as my testing time approached, I began to struggle with anxiety, and so I went outside with Sensei to talk.

Once other Hapkido students began arriving, I headed back inside to prepare for testing. Thanks to bills being somewhat unpredictable this month, Master Eric agreed to let me test, and pay him the following week when my refund from school came in the mail. Thank goodness.

Test time arrived, and we all bowed in and began to warm up.Contrary to what I'd seen on other test days it looked as though something had gone amiss, though at first I couldn't really figure out why. All I knew was that Sensei, who usually focuses solely on me when I am testing, kept getting called away to help with other students. Later I learned that Anthony had been asked to show up and help, due to the amount of people we had testing, but had been unable to, leaving everyone scrambling.

In any case, here is the list of techniques I was tested on:

Strike Reps
Drills-garment grabs/brush trap strike
Quiz on the basics
Signature moves
Chokes
Weapons
Sparring- single/double
Philosophy

The only real hiccup we had was Sensei asking me to do drills, when usually he asks me to improvise. That threw me off, and I nearly had a panic attack. But, things were quickly resolved and I ended up passing my test. This was really the first test I struggled with in any way, and it was definitely a wake up call, which caused me to re-evaluate my work ethic.

More soon,

Misha