We tested last night. I was very nervous and muffed a little on one of the one step sparring and still passed. I am now a brown belt. Now gotta go live up to the new rank when we come back.

Congrats on doing well on your test.  Remember if you mess up on a test this is not honestly as bad as you think, unless you do it over and over again.  Those who watch testing can normally tell if you just made a mistake or if you did not know what you need to do. 

For example if you are doing Taeguek Yuk Jang and you mess up a move and recover they can tell that you made a simple mistake.  However if you did Taeguek Yuk Jang and messed up every step odds are you did not know the form.  AT my school it is not uncommon to do a poomse 2ish times to see what happens the second time around.

I am looking forward to my black belt pretest in Feb.  The last test I did was back in June for my final red belt level, red belt black tip, or for some schools a 1st degree brown belt.  Since that test I have gone to promotional testing to watch and support my classmates, however not testing for this long and watching the last test did mess with me a bit.  Perhaps this is why my school has black belt pretesting 2 months before the actual test.  I could not imagine how it would be for a 4th dan preparing to test for 5th dan after not testing for 4 years and doing only one test. 

Thanks, we have our Bodans test every test. They accumulate points to test for black belt. They have to be a Bodan for a year before they can test for their black. So I can see where its been a while since you last tested and for me personally would be a little nerve wracking. One of the Masters told us that its ok to mess up as long as we recover and don't let it bother us. But I think they know thats it usually nerves when me make mistakes. They watch us before tests and know before we test which rank we are going to be.

I have a friend who is a professional fighter (kickboxing & boxing). He's 33 & been training since he was 13. Ever since I've known him (at 18) he's always been very calm in the ring. I asked him how he does it. He thought & said, "you  just keep doing it."

I've had many stressful situations in my life (in class & out) & that simple advice has been the way I've gotten through it all. I wish there was some magic way to do it, but there isn't. Look at past tough experiences that you've gone through. You got through those. For me, it's prayer & preparation. I prepare what I need to do (for work, a test, a race...whatever) & I pray for the wisdom to use what I've prepared for.

I wish you the best!

LOL this is a sick but funny story. For me first few competitons I would get sick a few feet from the ring before my first match and between matches. I would also be sick the night before. I used to really stress myself out before competitions. I was extremely thankful this stopped after a year or so, but my instructer found it to be extremely funny.

As for the comment directed to me about my wait.  Thankfully once I earned my black tip I was allowed to start attending black belt classes.  So I have been attending black belt classes since around August.  I have gotten some great feedback from some of the Masters and Jr. Masters for having the courage and dedication to attend those black belt classes regulary.  I am hoping more of those hoping to be on the April promotional test start coming to the black belt classes so we can work togather as a group.  (Opps just in case I did not say this before.  At my TKD school we have 10 or so branches so testing gets interesting when you do not often train with the people you are testing with.  I do have another classmate who is also working on being prepared for the April test, but aside from him I only know one other person who is planning to test.  I know that we only have 7-10 people who will be eligible to test but I have no clue on what the rest of the group are up to.  Personally I would love to pull us togather for a day a week of practice as a group so our test goes by wonderfully for all of us.)

Just thought I'd pull out the most pertinent piece of advice here.