saffronhare

So. TKD testing this past Saturday. It went well enough that I feel I can say I passed. We haven't gotten our scores yet, which means the girls are DYING, but really...a 70 or above is passing, and (so far) none of us have scored below 87.

There was one moment in particular I wanted to remember: my board-breaking. For each belt level, there's a particular board-breaking one undertakes as the crowning glory of testing day. Successfully breaking the board on your first try is an easy 15 points. Every attempt after that is one point less. (Yes, they'll let you try 15 times.)

As one goes up in belt levels, the requirements get tougher -- a punch and a kick, for example -- but mine on Saturday wasn't very difficult. I had to do a roundhouse kick and break one board. What had me worried was my right foot. I just wasn't willing to slam that foot, newly healed and increasingly functional as it is, into a pine board.

I decided to kick with my left foot, which is approximately 8% less precise, but *much* less worrisome. I thought, hey, self, you'd better kick the crap outta that board. No way did I want to have to kick it TWICE. (Board breaking isn't difficult or terribly painful, but one does feel the impact. And manoman is it embarrassing to hear that *thwack* sound of one's foot bouncing off the board echo across the room.)

I tell you, that board didn't stand a chance. I was on the far side of the studio when I kicked, and it split into THREE pieces, one of which rocketed across all the other lines of people kicking and holding boards, nearly hitting a few folks and making it within inches of the Brand New Windows. So my yell of awesomeness as I kicked was followed almost immediately by the sound we all make when we're trying to stop an object already in motion with the power of our minds.

It was a little bit embarrassing. In that lovely little moment of silence as the instructor handed me the slab that had almost hit him in the head, I addressed the pine board, "You'd better STAY broken."