Taekwondo: Five down, four to go

Four tests down and I am now a taekwondo purple belt. In the grand scheme of things I am on my fifth belt in just over two months (white, yellow, orange, green and purple) and the next one will be for a blue belt (then red, brown and black). That's quick progress by anybody's standards but I think to really improve I need to lose weight and train more. This is a sacrifice I would like to make when the weather becomes a bit more agreeable. In the lead up to today I've been a bit ill, missed one days practice and couldn't train hard the other time but despite this I felt confident going in to the test. I felt no nerves this week at all.

The pre-test group practice went well but with ten minutes to go my technique deteriorated and I began making mistakes. Luckily this didn't carry over too much into the actual test. I passed but this was my worst display so far and I am not very happy with myself. I won't be dwelling on things but having just seen a clip of the next test poomsae there is a lot of work to be done to improve. When will I be able to take the black belt test? My estimation was initially for August but now I am thinking May or June. A May test would be amazing. Purple has never been my colour and I want to get rid of this as soon as possible. Hopefully I won't look so portly in my next picture.