My journey to becoming a black belt is currently a senior red belt, and I’ve been doing taekwondo for more than 2 years, and I’ve loved every single part of it.
When my older brother and I started doing taekwondo, we would usually be the only ones in the class. There weren’t a lot of people in our class compared to how many there are now. When I first started doing taekwondo, my first thoughts were: are we ever going to spar people? or why do we have sparring combinations? When I got to orange belt, I was excited because I could finally spar with people, but then Mr. Lacy told me that from green belt and above, there were no more sparring combinations. I was happy because I don’t think I could remember all the combos if they continued making them.
While me and my brother were doing taekwondo, we met a lot of new and cool friends like Dilen, Ryan, Kevin, and a lot more amazing people. I love doing taekwondo. Every time me and my brother get a chance to go to a sparring workout, we will go, and I recommend everyone to go to at least one. It’s super fun, and you get to spar with multiple black belts and you get to learn more stuff. If you think sparring is easy, go to one and spar with other people. There’s always someone new to spar with and someone new to learn from.
My goal is to one day kick Mr. Lacy in the head when we spar. I haven’t achieved that goal yet, but one day I will do it.
Throughout my journey of becoming a black belt, I have been given the privilege of teaching other kids taekwondo. I never thought that I could do that, and every day I’m improving in my teaching, and I enjoy teaching everyone. There are some challenges to teaching, like remembering every single form and every single sparring combination, and of course the hardest one in my opinion, remembering every kid’s name, but those are obstacles I’m going to beat.
To me, being a black belt is like beating the last level of a game. But after you beat the game, there’s another challenge that you have to beat. To me, the last level is probationary black belt, and the challenge is to reach 9th degree black belt.
When I become a black belt, I’m going to take a picture of me holding all my belts that I have earned throughout the journey of becoming a black belt. I want to become a black belt to prove to myself that I can accomplish anything, but my other goal (that isn’t kicking Mr. Lacy in the head) is to be able to reach a second degree black belt before I finish high school. Even when I finish school, I’m going to try to continue doing taekwondo because I want to see everyone that I’ve taught or helped reach black belt.
Hopefully, I pass testing and get my first black belt in August of 2022.
By: Jonathan Guerra