Dan Tests

Last Saturday I tested for my 1st dan in Dae Han Kumdo. Dae Han Kumdo is basically the same thing as Japanese Kendo except the motions are said in Korean and Korean Kumdoists learn a Korean sword form.

I now hold a black belt in three martial arts. I am a 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo, a 1st degree black belt in Hapkido, and a 1st degree black belt in Kumdo. In this post I will go over the details of my various black belt tests so as to give some examples of variances between martial arts and how tests are administered in different countries. I'm going to describe first my Kumdo test, since it is the freshest in my memory, and then I will go into my Taekwondo tests.

1. Korea, Kumdo.

This test was held in a high school in a city called Masan. Masan is a coastal industrial armpit that is famous for its steamed monk fish. Hearing that one has to go to Masan for something is like hearing that you are having meatloaf for dinner or finding out that you need dental surgery. I've considered refraining from telling enemies to go to Hell in favor for telling them to go to Masan. Nonetheless the testing gymnasium seemed new. The floor had a white tint to it that brightened up the room. So this trip to Masan wasn't all bad.

My Journey in Kumdo began 5 years ago when I first came to Jinju. It was February or March of 2006 and I had an itching to begin another martial art. At that time I took a small break from Taekwondo. I really just wanted to learn something new, after a long time of doing the same martial art, you realize that there aren't that many new techniques to learn after getting your second or third degree black belts, all you can do is improve the ones you already have, or try to learn how to do some kind of incredible acrobatic kick that will only earn oohs and ahs, but will never really come in handy in a fight, or impress a girl enough to want to go out for coffee.

This was after I worked at an English sweatshop for a month and after a trip to Japan and I thought I was flush with cash. I mentioned to a Canadian guy who had a Korean wife that I was interested in taking Kumdo lessons. He knew a local instructor and they took me to him. I signed up that day without much hesitation. After about a month of lessons the instructor pulled me into his office and showed me a picture of some armor. He then wrote down a price on a piece of paper. It said 550,000 won (At that time it was about $600) . Not knowing what to do, I ended up buying the equipment and having to stay another semester at Gyeongsang university, instead of buying a plane ticket home.

I ended up coming home again in December of 2006 after a few months of Kumdo training. While I was home, I sought out a local Kendo club in Battle Creek, called the Battle Creek Kendo Kai. I did some training there, and was satisfied with the instruction. The fee was only 30 bucks a month. I also attended my first Kendo tournament with those guys at Eastern Michigan University. In the end, I missed the woman who would become my wife too much, and the best work I could get in Michigan was in a box factory, so I found another job in Jinju.

I didn't start training again right away. My new job had some shitty aspects to it.
1. I was bad at it.
2. Some of the students acted like gangsters.
3. I had to do these awful night classes twice a week. I got mega hooked up on kimchi allowances from doing them, but I fled Michigan for having to work 13 hour days in a green house, and I ended up in Korea having to go to school at 8 in the morning and come home at 9 at night two nights a week. The worst part was that on those days that I taught night classes I only had about 3 or four classes during the day. My apartment is also a half hours bus ride from the school. I couldn't go home and there was nothing to do except hang around at the school and wait for the night classes to start. Then half way through the semester, they decided to delay the night classes an extra half hour, so instead of getting home at 8:30, I could get home at 9:00. The only exercise I was getting was through these volley ball games that seemed important on Thursdays. I hate volley ball.

As luck would have it though, one of the guys who worked in the office at my school was on the Korean national Kumdo team. I mentioned to a few people that I liked Kumdo. That guy must have run into my old instructor some where and said something about me being back. Around December of 2006 I got a text message from him and I rejoined the school. Since then I've trained sporadically. Sometimes I miss a few weeks, but I come back. I've competed in a few competitions, where I have scored points and won matches, I've also lost points and lost many matches, but that goes with the territory, and that brought me to last Saturday.

The test was rather simple. There were 4 parts.

Part 1 Bonguk Gum bub.
Gonguk Gum Bub, is supposedly a 1000 year old Korean sword form that has been revitalized by modern Koreans. It is in the old Korean marital arts book called "Muye Dobo Tongji." Unfortunately for me I made some pretty big mistakes in this form. I was the only white guy there and I turned the wrong way at one point, that screwed up the next few motions, but I faked it and ended well. I was pretty embarrassed about that. I know it pretty well, I just made a mistake, perhaps I'll climb a mountain a post a video of me doing it.

Part 2 Pon
These are the Japanese partner forms called, "pome," in Japanese. There are 10 of these forms, but people testing for black belt only do 1-5. My partner in doing these was a woman who also made a few mistakes in Bonguk Gum Bub. She seemed as nervous as I was in this, but we sailed through it without a hitch.

Part 3 Armor on.
After the pon, we put on our gear and did yun gyuk, or Kai Kaishi in Japanes. This is an exercise where one person attacks the others head and does five left and right head attacks stepping forward, and four left and right head attacks while stepping back, the other person blocks the strikes with their Jukdo (Shinai). This is done twice and then concludes with an attack to the head and the attacker moves past the blocker.

After that we just did some free fighting. I was paired with the same woman as before. She was about a foot shorter than me, so I just went easy.

Part 4 Written test.
This was the hardest part. The test was in Korean. I asked the instructor if I could get the questions beforehand so I could study them. He gave them to me with the answers in Korean. I had no choice but to memorize the page of Korean, and then copy verbatim on the test paper. When it came to test time, a few people were looking over my shoulder. One lady came up and told me that I could write the answers in English. Hell no I wasn't going to do that, I spent the whole day memorizing a bunch of Korean. Then there was this guy from my school who was taking the test with me. He was looking over my shoulder too, and trying to give me the answers in Korean. I had to sh him twice because I had to concentrate.

All in all it turned out to be an okay test, and I found out that I passed today. I was pretty disappointed about making those mistakes in the form, but live and learn I guess. The best part was the testing fee: 20,000 won or about sixteen bucks. I was surprised to learn today that I had to pay another 40,000 won because I passed, but still, the price really isn't too bad...as you will see.

America, Taekwondo 1st dan
I was 16. Grand Master Chung requires everyone testing for a black belt to fast for three days before testing. I drank milk and orange juice for three days. I didn't know that that was cheating.

We ended up working it all out, but three days before the test my foot met the shin of a well conditioned former Korean kick boxer. My foot swelled up pretty big, and I had trouble walking for a few months. I limped through my test, managing to do all of the forms and break all of the boards. Back then there was a guy at our school who was a complete asswipe. He was a third degree black belt, who was in his late thirties or early forties. Just a real son of a bitch, wasn't really that good at Taekwondo, and he was mean to the students that he taught, except for the women that he hit on. Just a real scumbag, a perfect guy to teach women's self defense, since women really need to defend themselves against people like him. There was a period of time when I had to take lessons from him. I really don't remember anything he taught me except for the fact that he was an asshole. Anyway, at that test we had to show some jump kicks or something. I was hopping around on my left foot trying to jump and kick with it since my right foot was useless that day, and this dude was trying to say stuff in Korean, and acting all frustrated when I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

He disappeared soon after that. I heard that he got in trouble for spanking a kid during a kids class, or he had a heart attack or something.

Anyway the Taekwondo tests are pretty intense. We have to do all of the forms we learned, break some boards, fill out a written test, fight with a few different people, show the self defense techniques we learned, and demonstrate something called one step sparring. The tests usually take about 3 hours. The Kumdo test I did was only about 2 hours, but more people tested, and there were a few testing boards. The test was very efficient.

Teakwondo 2nd Dan
This test was much better. I did the full fast, and did everything Grand Master Chung asked me to do. This was a make up testing event so there were only about 5 of us there, more scrutiny. I loved it. I wanted to show off.

Taekwondo 3rd Dan.
I started my fast on a Wednesday and my car broke down outside of a KFC. They were reluctant about letting me use their phone. I had to point at my car that wasn't moving that was blocking their driveway for them to get a clue. The car's axles were about to fall out, so I ended up getting a brand new Corolla. That was pretty sweet. The test went alright too, I can't remember it much though.

Taekwondo 4th Dan.
By this time testing was so run of the mill that I really didn't care that much anymore.

Hapkido 1st Dan.
There was no test. I paid Grand Master Chung for lessons up to my black belt in Hapkido a few years back. He stopped teaching it, after a year of my training. I had a brown belt or 4th gup in Hapkido. Later he just went ahead and filed the papers for me to get a black belt. Again, it kind of pissed me off because I didn't pay him for belts, I wanted the training. But I guess I can use that to take advanced lessons here in Korea. I might join a school for that here, but I probably won't. I don't want to take a martial arts class with bunch of kids.