My oldest son and I both earned our Kukkiwon 1st Dan black belts in taekwondo back in October of last year. You can read about my taekwondo journey and me feelings regarding the test here and here’s a rundown of the test itself and my thoughts afterward (spoiler alert: it was really fucking hard).
What does that have to do with art or graphic design? Nothing. But this is my blog and it was pretty cathartic for me to write out my thoughts, so there we go.
We were finally able to have our graduation ceremony a couple months ago in March. Apparently it took a long time for the official certificates to get here from Korea.
Friends and family were invited to attend. Our master instructors were there along with a few studio instructors who were integral to our training. This was seriously a team effort!
The beginning of the graduation involved a trail run up a pretty steep hill where we were all presented with our black belts. I was the LAST one up the damned hill because I didn’t see which direction the group went and I went the wrong way. Also, it was ridiculously muddy, I almost fell multiple times.
We took lots of photos at the top of the hill and then headed back to our studio.
This photo is me with my husband. Anyone who has parented a child through the physical and mental preparation that goes into a martial arts black belt test would agree that there should be a black belt for parents. We have watched quite a few parents go through it and we wholeheartedly agree that they've earned their own kind of black belt.
Compound that with supporting your spouse going through the same-but-different preparation too and you have the level of awesomeness that my husband achieved. It took me a long time to put these feelings into words; which is apparent since our black belt test was months ago.
Part of me didn't want to test alongside my son because I worried that I would focus too much on his training at the expense of my own. My husband was the rock that supported our preparation and it took on multiple forms... Pushing our son when he wanted to quit or refused to listen to me anymore (which was a lot). Commiserating with me and offering ice/heat/massage/ibuprofen when I was in pain. Humoring me when I questioned why the hell I was doing this. Cooking dinner pretty much every night, including the 4-5 nights/week for 2-3 hours we were at the studio. Encouraging me to go to class when I didn't want to, but in a way that wasn't a guilt-trip. Coordinating with other parents to make sure we had support during our black belt test. Making sure uniforms were clean, sparring gear was accounted for, and belts and weapons were always in the car.
I don't know if I would have passed if I hadn't been able to put parenting (and sometimes adulting) on the back burner many nights and I feel like my husband earned this belt almost as much as me.
Wholeheartedly, thank you babe.
Back to the graduation…
We headed back to our studio and changed into uniforms. Our master instructor said a few words about what being a black belt means and how hard we worked for them. Then we all got our belts, one by one.
Actually, there IS a tiny bit of graphic design in this post because I do most of the graphic design for our studio. Here is the printed program I created for our graduation. These were 8.5x11 inches, folded in half, and printed on card stock at our local Office Depot. I kept the color scheme simple with black, gray, and red.
The back cover had a bunch of messages that I asked parents to write to their kids and there is one message from my husband to Rachel and me (the two non-kids). I felt it was a bit too personal to share publicly, but it looked beautiful too.
Lastly, here’s a video one of our master instructors made about our test. She’s pretty darned good at it.
So, that’s it.
But you know the crazy part? I’m thinking about testing for my 2nd degree black belt in October of this year…