How do you feel with your belt? Do you think it mirrors your effective skill? As Taekwondo Olympic call grows louder, students no longer feel grades as critical goals. Most of them deliberately give up on acquiring superior dans to avoid learning complicated poomsae, which would subtract time to combat training. However, nowadays black belt exams are not selective. They're expensive. But there is little point in spending time and money for grades easily achieved by poor martialists as well. A few weeks ago, I took my 4th dan exam. It costed me 200 euros, travel expenses aside. I was happy to undergo a test unlike my frequent poomsae competitions, even though I was strongly debilitated by a five months stop. The excitement for the unusual trial, however, couldn't prevent me from questioning the meaning of what I was doing. Did I want to take a further step in my TKD career? Did I want to acquire the grade that would allow me to perform Pyongwon at the Italian Poomsae Championship this December? Did I want to have my two decades experience in this sport attested on the basis of a public showcase? Maybe the three of them, but the one thing I am always looking for at an official TKD event is truth. And as long as failing an exam will be a remote possibility, I will find it hard to give much importance to those little stripes on the right end of my belt. 200 euros drain excepted.
Individual sports don't exist. You always need to be part of a team. You always need someone to guide you, support you, train with you, and ultimately share the joys and toils of competing. Exams and tournaments, however, count moments when you actually test yourself in complete solitude. This is when you face sides of you you didn't even know existed. Pressure, anxiety, adrenaline manifest themselves with much more meaning than the washed out words we often improperly use. The life of a taekwondoka is dotted by moments like this, when you're just a little white spot on a dark background. It can be overwhelming, but it's brief. And potentially revealing.
This is a time paradox. Your performance hasn't begun yet and your eyes meet those of someone whose competition is already over. Future and past cross their paths. The future is tight, palpitating, locked and loaded. The past can be relaxed, disappointed, hopeful. When you take turn with your opponent, you're not just saluting a fellow, you're meeting another you in a different time. Smile then, because one mistake you can't do is being rude to your very self. Competing is hard enough already.
