Amanda Takes Off...

I had the belt test tonight. The testing environment was more formal than I'm used to. Master sat behind a desk that was draped in velvety material. There was a big sign behind him (I was too nervous to even try to read it) and he marked up all these papers. Before he showed up, at the very beginning of class, everyone was lifting their knees up against the wall. They showed me what to do but I don't know quite what the purpose was...

I think the test went well. I was the only one testing in my belt. I was taught to do front kicks with my non-kicking leg facing forward (the direction of the kick) but now I'm being told to rotate that foot 90 degrees. Also, I was taught to keep my foot fairly neutral when kicking, but now I'm being told to point the foot and pull the toes back. It's hard to overcome 2 years of training. I was also told to go 천천히 (slowly) on the form. Again, the speed that I was trained at for years is hard to overcome. I am not complaining, all studios are slightly different and this is good training for when I train with my third consecutive studio when I get back to the States. Also, he seems to understand. (Of course, I will retract this statement if I didn't pass the test.)

After everyone test and we bowed out, I was told that I could change and leave. I waited a bit, but Pyeong Ju didn't come out (nobody did) so I guess he was doing a lot of talking in Korean.

I stopped by the really local yarn store in the market near the studio. A much longer post is on my primarily knitting website, but here's a picture of it.