Friday, June 09, 2006

Closer to black?

I'm getting closer to getting that black belt, I guess. Brian has already ordered us and Matthew the little black/brown belt key chains--and I think he's ordered the black belt ones, too.

I like his confidence.

"And if I quit?" I asked him once. I'm not always confident.

"I'll come to your house and take you to class."

I sometimes feel confident about being in the upper color-belt ranks. Like when someone asks me to help them with a form, and I can.

But I often feel a bit over my head these days. It may look like I'm getting closer to being a black belt, but I sometimes feel like I'm just becoming asymptotic to that goal.

(Math metaphor courtesy of 11th grade math.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"And if I quit?" I asked him once.

And if I QUIT???

Come on, TKD Mom, who are you kidding? :)
You won't quit if for no other reason than you're the kind of person who (barring unforeseen obstacles) completes a task she sets out to do. The marked progression of your learning, memorialized in the changing colors of your belt, is an orderly process that you've enjoyed since grammar school days, and it's a path that you will see to the end.

But, seriously, you'll continue because the martial arts have gotten under your skin -- the mixture of strength and power and sweat and culture and history (like your ballet training also).
Although we often look at the black belt as the end, it's only the end of the beginning of the study of TKD. There will be many times after you attain your black belt that you will think that you don't deserve it -- I know I do. But, then you'll have a particularly good class, or teach something well, or learn something new, and the confidence and enthusiasm return. A black belt is like a high school diploma -- you've learned the basic tools, now you have to determine whether you will continue to improve upon them.
Kicker Chick