HSK Anecdote 2015

By Eloise Aguiar

 

Belt exams!  Every single one that I have taken was stressful and raised my level of self-doubt to the point where I always questioned: Am I ready??

Each Dan or Black Belt test, took those demons to new heights.

So when Sensei announced last year that there would be another Black Belt test, I thought I would refrain. I told myself it was too expensive.

However, I would train just as if I was going to take the exam, and I would get all the benefits of the challenge: increased physical stamina, improved techniques and refined abilities. It would be exhilarating.  And for a while I was thoroughly enjoying the workouts.

Still it wasn’t enough. Physically I felt great and was getting everything I wanted out of practice. We went harder, and lower and faster as we progressed. We were pushing our bodies to new limits.

But, something was missing. I wanted more out of the Dan training. And it took some time to figure it out.

Hard as it may be to believe, I realized that I wanted the stress and the self-doubt so that I could to deal with them. I wanted to prove that all this training that we do to control our bodies, to control our minds, works. And really the only way I saw to test my ability to overcome the self-doubt and deal with the stress was to participate in the exam.

Because as Sensei has told us for 32 years, if you can control your mind, if you can focus. You can get really good at karate and at whatever you do.

OSU!!