"R.E.S.P.E.E.K. Respect, Double D."

There are always going to be people in our lives, whether we like it or not. My dream is to live on an island all by myself and this island has no phone reception or any docks. Point: stay out!

But alas, we are both plagued and blessed with frequent visitors and passersby.

Now, the people who are involved in martial arts are a different kind of people, depending on the myriad of uncountable variables involved in your personal experience. There was this one person, once, who never should have been allowed into my realm of friends but I let her, and many others, in and I have yet to forget the... experience.

She wreaked of the air that she figured she was better than I was. She was taller, skinnier, and younger (I was 17, really?) but she tried really hard to be my friend. I think it was to compare herself to me for her own self-conscious ends. I'm not sure why I didn't stop talking to her sooner.

When I got my black belt and began working for my second degree, she was a high red belt. A few months later, she got her black belt.

Now, when students line up for class, it goes by seniority. The person with the highest ranking belt gets the first spot in the room and the white belts get to be in the back. If we have belts of the same color, then it goes by age.

One day, when class was over, we all lined up and we fit four by row. I lined up in the fourth spot, in the first row, as a first degree black belt, and those in front of me were second and third degree black belts. This girl, who had JUST gotten her black belt, ran and stole the awkward spot in between me and a second degree black belt - she was to my right, ahead of me.

I waited for her to move to the second row, behind me. But she didn't. I waited for any of the instructors to say anything, and they didn't. They bowed out class.

I was so mad. I was annoyed, insulted, and disrespected. How dare she impose herself before me like that? And you know what's worse? I didn't say anything. Nothing. To her or to the instructors. I allowed her to walk all over me. I just let it go. Ugh.

When I was growing up, I didn't have a lot of confidence. None in my appearance and not a lot in my intelligence. That kind of thinking really brings you down, and instances like the afore-mentioned slip by. But I remember always having enough self-respect to stand up for myself when my name was blatantly tarnished.

This is something that I haven't forgotten and I promised myself that I wouldn't let it happen again. It's one thing to tell yourself what your flaws are but a completely new thing to let someone else do it for you.

After I swallowed by anger and let the matter go (mostly), I was ready to be done with Tae Kwon Do. I had gotten my black belt and that sufficient enough. I didn't feel that I had to do more. But on a casual Saturday, I was talking to one of my instructors and the conversation led to moving forward in Tae Kwon Do, even after getting a black belt. He told me that being a first dan was a bottom of the barrell black belt and that I should work for my second dan.

At first, I was slightly offended. I put all that work into my first dan! Are you kidding me? Already my first dan is ample ammunition for further disrespect?

Turns out, he was absolutely right. When you finally reach your black belt, after all the sweat, blood, and tears, you discover that achieving your black belt just opens to door to harder work, more sweat, more blood, and more tears. I wanted that. I wanted to go for my second dan. I wanted to go for my third dan. I wanted to go for my fourth, and make people call me "Master McCosh."

Problem was, I was a senior high school and like hell I was staying in Utah when the end of the yar rolled around. I only had one year to test for my second degree. See, it takes two years from your first to second dan testing. Three years from second to third, four years from fourth to fifth, etc. all the way up to ninth degree.

Undeterred, I went to my sabumnim. "Sir, I would like to test for my second dan next summer. Is there any way that I could do that?" I asked this casually, thinking that I probably wouldn't be able to do it. However, my dear sabumnim once again did not let me down. He told me that he would speak to Grand Master Kim and that, if I were permitted to pursue my second dan in half the time, I would have to double my tae kwon do time.

A couple of weeks later, he came back to me with the news that Grand Master Kim would allow it. I had one year to test for my second degree black belt.

I went to tae kwon do four to six days a week, for about four hours or more a day. I trained and I taught. Now that I was a black belt, I was determined to become an instructor. When I spoke to my sabumnim about it, I told him that I wanted a job teaching but that I wanted to do it on a voluntary basis. Afterall, all I had to do to get my black belt was clean the school for it. I felt like that wasn't quite enough. So, I switched to teaching as part of my second dan training, to help pay for my classes, and just to help out around the school I loved so much. So, really, it wasn't voluntary at all.

My senior year of high school was well spent. My confidence had blossomed. I was feeling better about myself and making new friends became a little easier. I was doing regular classes, a couple of honors and AP classes, a few clubs, and, of course, tae kwon do.

By the time the end of the year rolled around, graduation was set in place. I graduated in May of 2008, which means I can say I graduated high school when I was 17... only to turn 18 a month later. Also, being in a Catholic school, we had two graduation ceremonies. The Baccalaureate Mass and the Graduation Procession.

 Before I graduated from high school, I was intent on attending the University of Oregon. My dad lived in southern Oregon and I really wanted to get out of Utah. I didn't really care where I went, as long as it was out of Utah. Oregon seemed like a good pick because I had been there before, my dad was nearby, and my brother was up in Washington. But my mom sure didn't want me to go.

We looked into U of O and tried to figure everything out, but when push came to shove, we didn't have the money for the University of Oregon. I had applied there, University of Utah, and Princeton. I got an interview with Princeton, but they didn't accept me and I would be damned to hell before I went to the U of U. So, I was shit out of luck when I graduated from high school.

But, one month later was my second degree black belt testing.

Testing for my second degree was much like testing for my first, except it was way cooler. When you're testing for your first dan, you're in the biggest and most nervous group of people. These are new soldiers, not veterans like the candidates for second degree and above. I got placed within the tiny group of first degrees going for second, in which, I didn't have to do any of the Taeguk forms, just Korryo, the first black belt form.

The test began with the conditioning portion. I excelled here. I shaved two minutes off my first dan mile - completed it in five minutes instead of seven. Then, we did our forms and one steps, and lastly came sparring. I had to spar the other two girls in my group, who were about four years younger than me, then kids from the national team came in. I was up against this girl who was taller and stalkier than me and I was petrified.

However, when the match started, she didn't move a whole lot. It turns out that we were evenly matched. My cheerleading squad consisted of my mom, my dad, my best friend, my boyfriend, and his dad.

When all was said and done, I don't think anyone could have wiped the grin off of my face. That moment when we all lined up and Grand Master Kim called our names and administered our belts, I could have died. I was handed my new black belt and my new uniform and the belt had two stripes on the ends, signifying that I was second dan. I was a second degree black belt.

I could have crapped my pants.

My dad and I drove back to Sandy after my testing and he proposed that I should come live with him and go to the local community college to get a cheaper headstart and establish Oregon residency. I was reluctant at first. Go to a community college? Yeah, that sounded great. On the other hand, what else was I going to do? So, I accepted and moved out of Utah that summer and started college the following September.

I LOVED living in Klamath Falls, Oregon. It's a pretty small town and I was able to keep busy. My step mom set it up to where I got another teaching/training position at the local Tae Kwon Do school a few minutes away from my new home. I enjoyed training there and enjoyed the people there, too.

Now, the beginnings of my time at this do jang will be revisited. The point I was to make came well after the following summer, after I had already completed my first year of college.

A group of kids from this school all got ready to test for their first and second degree black belts. We trained with them, taught them, and worked them to the brink of exhaustion. A few months later, one of the younger ones, who was a first dan, cut me off in the line up for black belts in class. He put himself before me. I tried to tell him to move, but he didn't listen. I let the sabumnim bow everyone out of class before I pulled the kid aside and told him that, not only am I a dan higher than he but I also have age seniority as well. He was to line up behind me, not in front, ever again. He acquiesced, and from then on, it never happened again.

I stood up for myself and I had every right to. I almost chickened out and let it go that he tried to surpass me. But then I remembered how indignant and offended I was back in Sandy when the other girl did the same thing and much more upset I was that I didn't do anything. This time, I did something. I wasn't mean or rude. I just told him the facts, he listened, and the problem was resolved. Thinking back on this always makes me smile. It takes a lot to allow your confidence in yourself to grow. It's easy to take compliments from other people, but it's extremely difficult to actually believe them to be true. Respect. It's what we teach. Self-respect. It's what we preach.

Stairway = purchase'd

For those of you who have ever tried high school, then you know the demands it requires. First you think you'll just try a little bit, there's no harm there, right? But one puff, and you're in; stuck forever within its stoney grasp of "education." Some of us got so hooked that we became euphoric about the entire ordeal and actually tried to do well and completed all the homework assignments. But others of us, those who had been strung out on high school for too long still went, due to the unfortunate addiction, but hated every minute of it.

The first time I tried high school, I didn't get addicted right away. I came back for more, five days a week, not really enjoying the experience at all. But then, I stopped noticing that I was going, it felt normal to just get up and go. I was stuck that way for four years.

The first two of those four years were your average underclassmen miserable years, but in the third year, something magical happened. Well, something magical eventually happened.

By my third year in high school I was sixteen and I had found a new euphoria in my high school experience. While going to high school, I also worked at Target part time, and still took my Tae Kwon Do classes. But by now, three years after my starting date at Kim's Academy, I was a deputy 4 belt. That's the belt before black. I was finally ready to test for my black belt! I knew all of my poomses, one-steps, and vocabulary. I was ready!

About a month or two before the black belt test date, my schedule was pretty hectic, but I liked it. I liked being busy. So, I spent Monday through Friday at school, hanging out with homework, doing Tae Kwon Do. I spent my weekends working 8-hour shifts at Target.

One weekend shift, I busied myself running various purchasable items over my scanner, awaiting the impeccable "boop" noise that allowed the transaction to flow, and I very suddenly started not feeling so well. My stomach cramped up and I felt nauseous. I attributed it to the small lunch I'd had and the five hours of sleep I'd gotten the night before, and kept on working.

But then the feeling of nausea got worse and it was then paired with fatigue. I still tried to keep scanning, considering I had a line of customers waiting to be checked out. Then, the cashier in the booth ahead of me turned around and asked me something. Her lips were moving but nothing was coming out.
I couldn't hear her. I couldn't hear anything!
My ears started ringing, and my vision began to fade.
I sank to floor of my cash register and blacked out.

Next thing I knew, I was lying in the aisle behind my cash register, in the arms of a strange man, my supervisor at my feet. They were laying me down, stretching my feet out in front of me. Then an orange juice showed up out of nowhere in my peripheral, all opened with a straw sticking out of it. Woozy, I accepted the drink. There were two people-in-charge surrying around me, getting my mom's phone number, my grandma's phone number, etc. The next thing I knew I was being lifted to my feet and escorted to a back room to wait for my aunt and my cousin to come pick me up. I was escorted right past a stretcher - that was a weird sensation, knowing it was for me.

After everything had calmed down and I was fully conscious, I discovered that there had been an EMT and a certified nurse in my check out line and they moved into action as I began passing out. The EMT was the man whose arms I'd woken up in and his wife, the nurse, was the carrier of the orange juice. Later, the paramedics were called and they were the ones who escorted me to the back room, and who had also brought in the stretcher.

When I went to the doctor the following day, she told me that I was too stressed out! And that I had to chill out if I wanted to avoid any more of these passing out situations. So, I took a leave of absence from Target and continued preparing for my black belt test.

When I told my sabumnim what had happened, he told me that I could postpone my testing. But I figured that I was going to be all right, since I had taken some time off of work; besides, I couldn't wait anymore to get my black belt! I could finally join the distinguished league of black belt awesomeness!
It was going to happen.
Public enemy #1: The fitness test. More specifically, running.
I've always been, and still am, awful at running, but I had to do it.

I had my little episode in May of 2007 and my black belt test was to take place in June 2007.
Here's the breakdown of the test:
There's a physical education part that consists of running one mile, doing about a million push ups, squats, leg lifts, and all sorts of other terrible things. Then there was a water break, then forms. All eight of the taeguk poomses. After that we had to do a varied assortment of one-step sparring techniques, board breaking, then, at last, sparring.

We also had to drive to headquarters in Centerville, which is way far away from where I used to live. My two cheerleaders: my best friend and my mom.

By the time we finally arrived, after getting lost, I was as excited as ever. There weren't any nerves at all! I was ready to prove myself on this most glorious of days.
I did my physical training well, until the running came. Since the do jang we were testing in didn't have a mile running lap in it, we had to run across the mats twenty times, full circle. I was the slowest and the last one to finish. I was beaten by everyone on my little team by at least three or four minutes. So, there I went, jogging back and forth, ignoring any rising self consciousness.

But at last, that was over and the real test began. The rest of the test wasn't easy, but it was much less humiliating than running by yourself, and I completed it well, even in front of Grand Master Kim and other masters and students I'd never met before. At the end of the nine hour test, we all finally lined back up and we all received our new black belts.

I'm having trouble putting into words just how... amazing it was, to finally get my black belt. I felt so many positive things swimming around in my brain as I held the black, two inch cloth in my hands. Glory. Ecstacy. Pride. Accomplishment.
It took three years but I had earned my black belt. My sabumnim was there, as proud as ever, and he gave me a huge hug in congratulations.
I had done it.
My plan was to stop there, as a first Dan black belt, but by the next week back in TKD classes, that all had changed.

But, there's just one more thing that earning my black belt did for me: it cemented my confidence. For those of you who know me, we can all agree that I did a 180 degree transition between the first and last two years of high school. For the first two I was shy, quiet, sad, and lived in my own little world. But by the next two, I was extroverted, smiling, happy, and doing the things that I wanted to do. I got my black belt just after this turning point in my life and I have to say, Tae Kwon Do really helped to make that transformation happen.