Black Belt Day!

Today was the day I've been training for over the last 7 months...the test for my black belt in kumdo. I was looking forward to a good night's sleep before the big day but my wife couldn't sleep because of tooth pain last night. She was afraid of the cost of going to emergency (after spending over $350 each of the 3 times she went to emergency in Canada) so she refused to go to emergency until 2 AM. Since she is married she is no longer under her parents' medical plan but her sister still is, so my wife gave the receptionist her sister's name. After giving her a shot in the rear (everyone gets a shot in the rear any time they visit a doctor, even for a simple cold) she got some pain killers and the whole experience cost about $8. Without medical insurance, she said it would have been over $20, which is still dirt cheap. In Canada we paid $300 to visit emergency just to have the doctor say, "Your thumb is healing well. Come back in 2 days." Later we also got a bill from the doctor herself for another $70. I should become a doctor.

We both slept well after returning home from the hospital and I went to my blackbelt test after lunch the next day. We went to Jeonju University at 1:00 to practice and the test started at 2:30. I practiced my "shim-sang-gom-bap" which is like a long memorized form/dance thing where I appear to be fighting dozens of invisible assailants, and jukdo (bamboo sword) sparring. I was feeling pretty good about myself when I arrived but my master shook his head and told me to practice more after seeing me in action. I'm used to practicing on a padded floor but today the floor was a basketball court - very slippery on bare feet and not very comfortable to do rolls and sommersaults on.

Come test time, we all received numbers and I was #71 out of 71, which meant I would go last. It took a good hour to test everyone and they usually tested 3 at a time. The floor was split up into 3 courts: one for shim-sang-gom-bap, one for jukdo sparring (both 1st dan tests) and one for 2nd and 3rd dan tests. (There are several blackbelt dans that can be acquired, the highest I don't know but you can't be an official master or teacher unless you are around 4th or 5th dan). After the long wait, I finally got my chance to step up to do my form and I could hear a commotion in the bleachers, which were filled with the proud parents of blackbelt hopefuls - there were only 8 adults taking the test, the rest were children. I guess the sight of a foreigner there was unexpected for them, but knowing that all eyes were on me suddenly made my heart jump. After a few moves though, everything came naturally and I barely even had to think about what I was doing. It came so naturally and went so quickly that I was sure I missed some steps but when I finished, I heard some clapping from the crowd and I got a few thumbs up from my fellow classmates.

Immediately after finishing the shim-sang-gom-bap form, I had to spar with another student. The moves are all pre-choreographed so I just had to remember what I had memorized. Unfortunately my sparring partner had not memorized the first set of moves and was striking and blocking in the wrong places. I was sure the judges would be able to tell that I was performing the right moves while he wasn't, but the uninitiated in the bleachers probably wondered why I was blocking my feet while he was striking at my head.

Besides the test, there were lots of announcements from people in suits, stretching, breathing/meditation time, bathroom breaks and a time for giving out trophies and medals to the best performers. I didn't understand much of what was said and just followed what everyone else did. This worked well most of the time but the bathroom breaks were really confusing because about 20 of the students would suddely stand up and run for the doors. I was never really sure if I was supposed to go or stay. I stayed and no one got mad at me so it turned out well.

My test went well and I'm pretty sure I'll be receiving my blackbelt in the next few weeks.

Other News
Regarding other news with us, we will be returning to Canada in the beginning of November. We were supposed to return on the 18th but my employer wants me to stop working October 29th and we will return home soon after that. My wife still won't be able to live in Canada at that time so we're expecting to be in Canada for 4 months and then I have another job lined up here for March which we will come back here for. That's the plan for now anyway but it could easily change.

My wife is now working at my school for 2 months. She wasn't planning to go back because of all the extra work she has to do for no extra pay, but after being out of university for over a month she's gotten bored and wrestless and had difficulty finding an employer that will take her for only 2 months. It's nice to work together again but every 2nd Saturday she has to be there for 3 hours which cuts into our weekends.

A Bad Day
In my last post I mentioned that I had a bad day testing my sword. I will tell you about it now. Well first we started out later than we expected and I didn't have a lot of time before I had to be at work. We went out into the country a bit to our usual bamboo forest to collect some for cutting. I was wearing sandals and the ground was covered in a prickly vine that managed to wrap itself around my ankles as I worked. My kumdo master cut the bamboo with a saw and I beat the branches off with a short, heavy stalk of bamboo and piled it. Another kumdo master joined us later, conveniently after we had finished collecting bamboo. After we had collected about forty 6-foot long stalks, we set up some stands for cutting. My kumdo master's stands were brand new and looked very solid and expensive, but unfortunately the adjustment screws were too short so the 2 to 3 inch wide bamboo would not stand up straight in the 5 inch wide pipe. After cutting a few stalks, I jammed some small pieces into the pipe to get a tight fit. This worked well but then while I was jamming a piece in, I slipped and cut an inch long gash into the palm of my hand on a sharp piece of bamboo. I was in a bit of shock and felt light-headed after seeing how deep it was and how much blood was coming out of it. I sat down and applied pressure and toilet paper to it until it stopped bleeding. Once it had stopped, I was ready to go home, but my kumdo master told me to cut more bamboo. I was a bit annoyed but thought I might as well continue since we put so much work into coming out already. I was cutting 3 stalks of bamboo at a time and was getting pretty good at the right-and-down stroke as well as the left-and-down stroke. The right-and-up stroke is really difficult and I wasn't able to do it most of the time. I tried and tried and just as I felt like I was getting the hang of it, I made a stroke that didn't feel quite right. I looked down at my blade and saw a good chunk broken off the edge of the blade about 2/3 of the way up. I wanted to cry.

Later my kumdo master told me that the sword is guaranteed for a year so it would be no problem to send it back and get it fixed. I don't know why he waited for an hour to tell me this, however. We sent it off and I got it back last week. They engraved a small picture of bamboo on the base of the blade as "service" which was nice but I swear that my sword is thinner near the tip now. Before it looked close to the same width from hilt to tip but now it seems to get more thin near the tip of the blade. So rather than replacing the blade I think they just filed the whole sword down to where the chip was.