It’s the eve of my Second Level Black Belt Test. It will encompass things I’ve learned throughout the last four and a half years of training. Weapons. Self defense. Sparring. Open-handed routines. Basics. Etc. Etc.
And I’m nervous.
I felt ready for the test six months ago (there are only Black Belt tests every 6 months at my school), and ironically, now that I’ve had an extra 6 months of practice, I feel a little less confident. Here’s my theory: Because I knew everything pretty well, I started receiving more and more high-level corrections. Little nuances and details that make a big difference.
I got some of these corrections as recently as last night.
Now that there’s so much more to remember – things that I haven’t had long enough for them to be natural yet – I’m concerned that I’ll forget to do them (and I know they’ll be watching for these things in particular), or worse yet, that I’ll be so intent on getting all of these little details right, that I’ll blank on the big things.
I’m not good under performance pressure. At a Kung Fu tournament last year, I completely blanked on one of my routines. I did the best I could to string a bunch of moves together, but it was nothing like what I had been taught and had practiced for months on end. That’s a huge hit to the confidence level.
On top of that, it seems that I’m the only one testing for this belt – out of 5 schools. There was supposed to be one other person from my school, but, sadly, an injury took him out. He’ll join me in 6 months. At least no one will be able to directly compare me to anyone else. On the other hand, I won’t be able to “cheat off” anyone else if I blank on something…
Then, of course, there’s the 10k on Sunday – and I haven’t run all week. I would love to be able to run the entire thing, but if I can’t? I can’t. I’ve been concentrating on Kung Fu this week because, I figure, I can sign up for a 10k any time, but I’ve been building up to tomorrow’s test for almost 5 years… and intensely for 6 months. I’ll be more worried about the 10k tomorrow night, I’m sure.
But for now, I’m worried about my test tomorrow afternoon. I’d love to hear some encouragement, even if you have no idea what my Kung Fu skills are like. That’s right, folks: I’m fishing for empty compliments! Calm these nerves of mine! I’ll pretend they’re all true :)
