Wow, last night was a big night. We had people testing everywhere from white belt to 1st dan. I tested for red belt. The test was pretty standard. We did forms:
Taeguk Il, Sam, Oh-Jang
Ki-bon 1-6: Cheon-Ji, Dan-goon, Do-San, Won-hyo Yool-gok, Joong-gun.
I think Taeguk Oh-Jang is my favorite, but it's really hard to pick favorites since they are all different and cover different things.
We also did one-step, two-step, and three-step sparring. At first we learn it very traditionally, in long stances, throwing punches out slowly and leaving it there for a move. But now we are expected to do it in fighting stances at near fighting speed, actually blocking and dodging each punch when it's two or three step sparring. Some of the ones we were tested on were scissors-kick takedown (NOT to be used in real life), hip throws, shoulder throws, center lock, split entry head lock, split entry sweep, and whatever else from lower belts we wanted to throw in.
Self-defense has cetainly become more challenging than it was at white belt. The instructor calls out an attack: same side wrist grab, cross grab, side headlock, choke from behind, two hands on one wrist, two handed lapel grab, .... We were mainly tested on S-locks (also known as Nikkyo in Japenese) and center locks at this belt, but they were interested in making sure we knew other stuff like arm-bar, hammer lock, throws, break aways.
The last two things were the board break, which was back kick. In my opinion it's both the easiest and hardest break we have to do. It's hardest since you have to spin and see the target so aim isn't as precise as any nonspinning break. But it is also the strongest kick. I broke on my first attempt, and sent the top half flying past my holder into the far wall
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The last piece was sparring, but since the test was going so long (with both white and black belts testing + plus us colored belts) that we only did one round. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I was complimented on my forms. This was probably my last test with this school since I'm graduating college and moving away.