That first test....

Or...."Don't stress about it". Yeah...I heard that a lot from the more senior belts. Hard to do when you don't know anything about what it's going to be like.

Looking back, going from a white belt to a yellow belt (there is some consistency in this between dojangs but not much) was pretty easy. I didn't think so at the time. I "overanalyze" a lot of stuff. Comes from being a coder. It drives my wife a little nuts because I always play devil's advocate to ideas she has. I know I come across as "negative" in these scenarios but I'm just trying to "solve the problem". Maybe this is more a "male" issue than a coder issue.

Back to the test. We were tested on the basics. I found out later that once you have your "recommended" stripe, you've already "passed" anyway. The testing is just a formality and a way to see how you perform under scrutiny. We went through some basic kicks and punches, a kicking set, some terminology (hana, dul, set, net....), and a blocking set. Being in the "intro program", we didn't do much of anything else.

The result: a yellow belt around our waist was the real world result. However......it was great to see my kids actually smiling and that sense of accomplishment they had when they had passed.