Second Dan

I'll be twenty-two in five days...and I'm glad I've managed to achieve what I aimed for before my twenty-second birthday - a second dan black belt. I do plan my career in tkd, my target is to get the 4th dan before my 30th birthday - it's not the belt that is important, but the responsibility and recognition that come with it. Being a fourth dan qualifies you to become an international tkd instructor. (of course, you need to pay a sum of money to complete the instructor course and then tada...you've become an international instructor!)The are many advantages in being an international instructor...but the most important thing is to utilize the 'advantages' to help my future students to deepen their knowledge, brush their skills, and gain experience in taekwon-do and matters related to the world in general. For the sake of the future generation...

A week ago, I was presented with my second dan black belt by my instructor, Ms.Tan. It was an honour to receive the belt from her as my first dan was presented by my former instructor, Mr.V.

Our grading test was graded by none other than Mr.V. and in my "report card" (an A4-sized paper showing how good/bad the candidate did during the grading). It includes the evaluation for Pattern, Self-defense/One-step-sparring, Sparring, Power test (plank breaking) and Attitude. I got "Above Average" for everything except one. "Above Average" is similar to 4 out of 5 marks. Unfortunately, I got "Average" for attitude!! I can't believe my eyes...I thought I was the 'holy-saint' in Legends, the most uncorrupted person, the most truthful and trustworthy...perhaps that is how the other black belts and Ms.Tan thought about me...but definitely not Mr.V.

Ms.Tan had once told the other black belts, "If you guys come to me and say something against what Alia told me, I'd believe and trust her more than anyone else!" - well, that's a good way to brag about myself huh? hehehe...lansi a bit ah!

I have to admit I did a few things that he, Mr.V., didn't really approve or perhaps he disliked the way I handle things. The fact that I opened my own tkd class and not telling him about it (I did tell Ms.Tan) and wrote a "counter-complaint" (with the permission/authorization/command from Ms.Tan) letter to an aunty who didn't want to be called aunty had really pissed him off.

I thought after the incident that night (the incident that had almost led to the destruction of our academy) he would change his perception towards me. Perhaps he would see that whatever I did was for the sake of Legends and taekwon-do. I opened my class partly to enable myself to pay for the second dan grading fee, and most importantly because I love taekwon-do so much and hope that others would see the beauty of its art and appreciate and enjoy it as much as I do. About the counter letter, actually, the makcik was the one who started it all first. She knew nothing about our tournament but she was bold enough to send a letter criticizing us. So, to prove that we're dare enough to accept her challenge, I was assigned to write a counter-letter. Yeah, it might be stupid of me to write such letter, but I wrote it in such a subtle but cynical way that she couldn't blame us for anything. It's not that we didn't want to admit our own weakness in running the tournament...but nobody else complained against us. And this particular makcik memang dah lama cari pasal with us. She's such a busybody that she had to report everything about us to the other instructor. She used to be a student in Legends, but then she "got pregnant" and can no longer train. Her son is still taking tkd lessons under Ms.Tan at Sentul. On the tournament day, she sat with an instructor from Singapore and kaw-kaw kutuk Legends way of running the tournament etc. The witness was our security fella, Joe. What the hell was trying to do, committing a suicide? Kutuk-ing her own instructor means kutuk-ing her own self for choosing such instructor to teach her tkd! Kutuk-ing her own people portrays her own defect. Instead of lending us a helping hand, she lended her ears to listen to the @#$%^ that the S'porean had to say, and she voluntarily lended her mouth to make bad statements about her own "self".

This makcik had also scolded an 11 year-old for calling her aunty. To her, it's not appropriate to call a PREGNANT woman, who has an 8-year-old son, a MAKCIK!! There must be something wrong "upstairs" la with this woman! The conclusion is...I wrote that letter to protect Legends' interest, as simple as that. I did suggest another solution to Ms.Tan and Daniel - allow me to correct her grammar (she wrote the complaint letter in English) and send it back to her in a sealed envelope hehehe! Of course, we had to opt for a more subtle alternative ^__^ .

Hmm...dunnolah!!!

Ms.Tan told me that Mr.V. wrote in the report that I did a mistake in one of the hand movements (blocking) in Po-Uen pattern. Ms.Tan showed me the correct way (the technique that Mr.V. showed to her earlier) of blocking, unfortunately for her, all the black belts did the same movement as I did earlier. This, we claimed, was the way she thought us last time.
This evening, I went to Daniel's house (to collect ang pow maa) and he showed me a book on tkd pattern. We discovered that our technique was similar to the one shown in the book.

Hmm...dunnolah!!!

What ever it is...I've got my second dan black belt and I'm proud of it - I had to undergo a three-week series of torture to get it, you know!! I just hope I'll be to carry out my responsibilities properly and set a good example to everybody.

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Sleepy...ZzZzzzZZzzZZZzzz