Accessorizing!

On friday afternoon I got a pretty new accessory for my wardrobe: a belt, black fabric with fancy gold embroidery. What is the embroidery? My name - in Korean!

On Friday, Dylan, Nathan, and I each got our black belts!!! They looked so cool all lined up ready to be awarded, but I think they looked even better ON us.

The ceremony was simple. We removed our old belts. I was SO happy to do that! I have been wearing that senior red belt for over a year now! That belt and I were friends and we have been through a lot together, but it was time to move on.

Then, one by one, our teacher tied our old belt in a knot to signify that it was completed, and then respectfully tied our new belt on for us.

Nate first.

Then Dylan.

And finally me.

While I have had my frustrations with Master Gu, my instructor, it still was quite an honor to have my black belt tied on respectfully by a 7th degree Korean Master. (Though, in my heart of hearts, I would have rather had it tied on by my old instructor, Kylee. Oh well. Some things just can't always happen just as we would wish.)

What is important is that I got it, right?

I got it!

Cool, huh?

I walked into my very first taekwando class in October of 2006. Luke was only 6 months old, and I was still nursing. My kids had already been going for a few months, and I had no intention of ever doing anything like that. I am a lady, after all. But I realized that we were paying a family rate, and that if I wanted to join, it wouldn't cost us anything. I was needing to loose some baby weight and it certainly looked like good exercise. Kylee, the female instructor, told me that she taught a women's only class in the evenings, and promised me a non-threatening, supportive, and child-free, male-free environment. She had me at the child-free, male-free part! A few hours a week with only adult females. Sounded like heaven!

So I went. I knew I would hate it, and I did.

Hate it.

More specifically, I hated how I looked in that gi (like white highwater PJs) and how there were ginourmous mirrors everywhere that continually exposed how goofy and uncoordinated I was.

But I did feel good about the exercise, at least, and the company was wonderful. I just loved all those ladies. They were always encouraging and supportive and patient... endlessly patient with me, and I needed all the patience they had to offer.

And that is why I kept going, even though I hated it.

Kind of hated it. OK, not so much.

Until one day I was surprised to find myself actually looking forward to my next TKD class!

Really?

It got to the point where I was excited all day for my class and I would do whatever it took to get to my class - even leaving enrichment meeting early (and I am always the lingerer at enrichment) and changing into my gi in the car as I was driving to class!

I loved, loved, loved it!

Loved it.

I loved the feeling of accomplishment and of doing things I never thought I could do... like throwing grown men to the ground wincing in pain,... and memorizing a complicated form,... and using nunchucks! Nunchuks! What kind of thirty-something mother of 6 plays with nunchucks?

Truthfully, belt tests scarred the crap out of me. I was SO nervous, especially at the beginning. I do believe that that first test is the very hardest of all. They got a bit easier after that because I knew what to expect, but there were all still very nerve-racking experiences! All 12 of them, each one increasingly more difficult.

And slowly but surely, one by one, I was getting higher belts, and with each one I was amazed at how far I had come! I never expected to get a black belt, though. Not in a million years. But as I got higher and higher, step by step, getting my black belt started become a possibility. Did I even dare to believe I could do THAT?

The funny thing is that I used to be SO mega impressed with someone who had a black belt. I mean, weren't their hands supposed to be registered lethal weapons? Weren't they just so super tough nobody would mess with them? Couldn't black belts just swagger down a dark alley without a care in the world?

But now that I am here I am thinking that maybe not.

I mean, look at me. Not super tough, and nobody has yet to register my anything as a lethal weapon. I still wouldn't be caught dead in a dark alley, and if attacked I am 100% certain I would just pee my pants and cry like a baby. (Unless, of course, you were messing with my kid. You never can tell what a protective mama bear might do if necessary, with without a belt!)

(I might, however, swagger on occasion.)

As I got closer and closer I kept thinking I would feel like a black belt. That is why I waited so long after getting my senior red belt (the last one before black) hoping I would start to feel like a lean mean, fighting machine: like a black belt. But the more I tried, the more I realized I didn't know, and the less I felt like anything like a black belt. And the less I felt I deserved it.

I could look at Nathan and Dylan and see how they deserved it, because I am a mom, and I have watched them just get better and better. I could easily take them for black belts. They are awesome! I just couldn't see it in myself.

But then I'd try to remember where I was when I started with my fresh, starchy white belt, and I realize that I have come a long, long, long way, and then that is when I start to think that maybe I do deserve to wear black after all.

I certainly have worked hard and put in the time.

And I do have a mean step side kick, if I do say so myself, and pretty much the highest kick in the whole school. (Thank you, my long, long legs!)

And I did, as you know, break a brick. That has to count for something.

I have learned that (PLEASE pardon the cliche') if I could do this, ANYBODY could do anything, if they just put in the work and stick with it long enough. Anybody. Anything. Seriously.

If I don't give you hope, I don't know what could.

So if there is anything you have always wanted to do, or in my case, never wanted to do, do it anyway. You might just surprise yourself!

So now, exactly four years after walking onto that mat for the first time I am still a goofy thirty-something mom of 6 in an ill-fitting gi...

but I have to admit it looks much cooler with accessorized with a black belt!