Receiving a black belt would mean everything to me. I’ve been doing karate for about 5 years, and I’ve always put a lot of time and effort into it. Through the past 2 years of being a red belt, it has taught me a lot about patience. The patience of waiting for a black belt. Over the past two years I’ve had so many obstacles in my way. The obstacles had stopped me from what I had really wanted wanted to do, but I hadn’t believed in myself enough to do it. Around last year before June of 2018, I was preparing for my black belt test. After preparing for a while I made a decision that I wasn’t ready to go through the tests of getting a black belt. I was too sick and my body wasn’t in the right condition to be able to take on those tests, so I gave myself time to recover from that illness which wasn’t easy.
I didn’t have enough blood in my body to be able keep my normal composure while exercising and my body weight was just too low. As I started getting better through the summer of 2018, I took my time to get myself together and start training hard again. Gradually I started going back to normal karate class and started to exercise more and memorize my belt sheets for a better and smoother approach to the black belt test. Now that I’ve begun and completed the physical part of the black belt test, I know I’m ready for the rest. With all of this said, having a black belt would mean everything to me, and would be a symbol of how hard I’ve worked for it, and how time consuming the work you put into it is. It would also be a symbol of respect for me and towards others because of just how much skill and hard work it takes to be a black belt. Now, with being so close to getting the black belt, it fuels me to work harder every day and to train myself to be a better person each day of my life. Having gone to karate for so long it has taught me a lot about respecting others as you would want them to respect you. I also learned that giving up is NOT an option and to keep moving and stay on your grind.
Something to finish this by saying that a black belt is only a reward for all of my hard work and commitment, but even though I get it the hard work will never stop. I’ll keep going and keep working until I physically can’t anymore and I’ll always remember what karate has taught me until the day I die. A black belt shouldn’t make you feel empowered or like you’re better than anyone else, it should inspire us to strive for greatness in ourselves and to work harder every day of our lives.