The past three months of preparation have been very intense. All the candidates had to complete a rigorous set of requirements in both physical and personal development. (I had to do the same thing last fall when I tested for Il Gup - see Embracing Sweat and Teamwork from August 2008).
Finding time to work on "The Book" was difficult. He couldn't very well work on it after school, because his school has a relatively late dismissal time; in fact, in order for him to get to karate on time I have to pick him up from school. He is on the STORM team, which means that he is responsible for assisting with all lower belt classes at least three times a week, so when he is at the dojang he is either taking class or assisting with class. He is also on the school's Demo Team, which takes even more time.
Luckily he was able to do the written work without much trouble, and most of the physical requirements he could knock off pretty quickly before school in the morning. But running was a problem. (See Starting "The Book" from January 2009.) Because he couldn't run effectively in our neighborhood, I tried all kinds of alternative locations. One which seemed promising was a high school track. I thought the only drawback would be that it takes about fifteen minutes to drive there, but my grandson was freaked out by the crowds of teenagers, so we only tried it once.
Finally we discovered the Rail Trail only a mile from our house. This is a wonderful paved walking and biking trail which uses the bed of a defunct railroad line. In other parts of the county there are sections which are quite long, over eight miles in at least one case, but in our area the only completed section is just under two miles. It's a beautiful, safe, quiet place, and it turned out to be just perfect for my grandson's running requirement. He could run the entire length of it and back in just over thirty minutes. If we had found it a couple of weeks earlier, he would have had no difficulty completing the required eight hours of running. As things stand, however, he falls about seventy minutes short.
He has had some emotional ups and downs during the preparation process. During the early days he was supremely confident; then when we were having the most trouble finding a time and place to run, he asked me several times what would happen if he didn't finish "The Book." (What could I say? "Of course you're going to finish it!") There was a period toward the end when he went through a lot of self-doubt and low self-esteem, which I think was related to the fact that two of his training buddies did not make it through the second pre-test and were bumped to the next testing cycle six months from now. This left him as the only Black Belt candidate under the age of fifteen. But about ten days ago Sa Bom Nim talked to him and reassured him that this was indeed his time, and since then he has been completely upbeat and excited.
So this weekend is going to be a real milestone in his life. I'll let you know how it all goes.
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