crushing

I’ve been putting off writing about karate because when I talk about karate these days I tend to be gushy. However my very first belt test is looming and the nervous tension is dampening the gushing enough to talk a little.
I love karate. Surprisingly. Oddly. Passionately. Karate is cool. Karate is tough. Karate is exercise, but it’s exercise that makes you think, hard, while you are sweating. It is simultaneously aerobic, contemplative, challenging, and graceful (not for me—I remain clunky). Eeeeeeek! Karate!
I’ve been floating along on my cloud of love for karate for 3 months. I’m all junior high-ish and squealy and giddy on Tuesdays and Thursdays, primping in the morning with lip gloss and hoping my zits aren’t that noticeable. (Mind and Body Control; Ki Hap, Breathing, Coordination, Balance, Attitude, Concentration, Respect) Hi Karate! *swoons*
Gradually through my fog of flustered ardor emerged a great new nervousness about my first belt test and I started getting all anxious and weird and worried about minutia. One day I talked to the instructor about it for so long that I was late to school to pick Z. up. I briefly considered ending my liaison with karate and finding another method of stretching out my ridiculously tight muscles. But I couldn’t turn my back on karate. (Tang Soo Do Is Way Of Life)
Finally the instructor explained to me that if the master gives you a form to take the belt test that it basically means that you have already passed because he and the instructor have seen you do everything you need to do during class. I got the slip the other day and I handed it back with my cash (no personal checks) today. (I hereby summit my application for GUP promotion test to the International Martial Arts Association.) So that should have made me feel better, right? Right.
But the thing is, I’m still nervous. It’s like being asked to the dance which is all good until you have to show up and actually dance in front of people. There’s lots of people at the test (Bring 2 friends to witness your test), including K., who has never seen me in action, and E., who breezed through his first test with the unaware breeziness of youth and will do the same on Saturday morning (9 am). There are strangers watching, and the fact that I’m being tested on my admittedly pathetic karate, and the pressure. According to the master pressure is part of the test, and performing under pressure is part of karate. (Our Goal Is To Be Best Black Belt!) I so HATE karate!
Except that I adore karate. I’m in, karate, hook, line and sinker. Love me, karate, love me back!
I expect that on Saturday I will complete Gi Cho Hyung Il Bu (regular and mirror) and not screw up too badly on the Il Soo Sik Dae Ryun (right) and break the board with a hammer punch and that I will avoid some sort of major eighth grade traumatic hissy fit in the middle of the test. (Two of the women in my class have admitted to me that they have cried during belt tests.) I expect to be a yellow belt on Saturday. I expect the nervousness to evaporate and the full on gushiness to return. I expect to love karate even more.