Respect

I've spent a good chunk of every Saturday this month at the dojang (I have to remember to stop using the Japanese word dojo--in Korean the term is dojang) because of the upcoming taekwondo belt test.  The highest belts in our school are third Dan (aka third degree) black belts, but because of our switchover to pure ITF taekwondo, we've been training for about two years under a fifth Dan black belt from another nearby dojang.  We will actually be testing next week at his school, under the joint review of both him and his own instructor, who is seventh Dan.  Gulp.  To put all of this into perspective, although the first Dan black belt for which I am testing may sound high ranking, I will be the one of the tiniest fish in the pond at this test!!  Assuming I don't royally mess up, I will, however, walk out of the test wearing a black belt that has my name (in English and Korean) and the Roman numeral "I" embroidered on it and that is pretty damned cool.

At any rate, the fifth Dan instructor has been working with us every weekend at our school this month fine-tuning our group for this test, and he generally brings two of his students with him to help out, a male red belt and a female third Dan black belt.  She's an older woman, I would have guessed in her mid-fifties.  I was talking to her after the class today and commented that I wish I'd started training before the age of 38, which is not exactly an ideal age to start training in a martial art.  Younger is better, I'd say age 6-8 would be optimal.  She replied that she started training again (!) at the age of 50 (!!) and is now 64.  I.e., a full TWENTY years older than I am.  Granted, her knees are in pretty rough shape and she has to modify some of the techniques (particularly those involving jumps) accordingly, but holy hell, the woman is 64 years old, a tremendously knowledgeable third Dan black belt and gearing up to test for her fourth Dan next year!  I want to be like her when I grow up.  Guess I'll start learning my second Dan material at the beginnng of October...I have no excuse not to now!