Becoming Black Belt

Becoming a Black Belt has been a dream of mine since I first came across a similar sport, Kung Fu, when I watched the 2010 The Karate Kid. Although Kung Fu and Taekwondo are not exactly the same thing, to the 11 year old girl who had never seen this sport before, I was very much intrigued by it, and thus started my five year journey to becoming a first-degree black belt.
I first started Taekwondo under Master Kevin at American Martial Arts in 2012. Walking in for the first time, I felt discouraged seeing my class filled with little kids almost half my age and size. However, I continued in order to accomplish my goal of becoming a black belt. Everyday I would go to class enthusiastic and eager to learn which helped me become pretty good, and then after a few months I approached my yellow belt mark of my TKD journey. At this point, I was 12 years old and met a certain height requirement , so I was required to move up to the adult class. I was really excited to move up finally, but as a yellow belt, we were first introduced to the concept of sparring with gear on which I was not excited about. This was definitely not as glamorous as Jaden Smith had made it in the movie! In this new class I was surrounded by experienced students with higher belts like red to black belts who were the cause of my fear. I always wanted to learn how to spar, but now that I was doing it, I was scared of
From not knowing how to spar properly, sparring has become my favorite part of the sport now. From not being able to remember a 30 second form, I am now able to simultaneously learn four forms at the same time, and do them with the proper techniques. From not being able to do a jumping back kick, now I can do many combinations of advanced kicks. But besides learning these taekwondo skills, this sport has many physical, mental, and spiritual advantages as