Words go by like a blur. Frantically studying in the last moments I had. Worried I would forget it all. My whole family piled in the car encouraging me. 

“You got this!” my little sister says. 

“Don’t stress! if you fail, you can always try again” my mom says doing more hurt than help. As I think I’m ready, we arrive at the site. My first ever black belt test. I was so nervous I could barely speak. 

“You ready?” My dad asks 

“Ready as I’ll ever be” I respond. Walking down the stone path felt like an eternity. I felt the cold, metallic feeling of the door handle as I turned the knob. One of my biggest goals was about to be accomplished in just a few hours.

    As I open the door, I am welcomed by my best friend, Aiden. There to cheer me on for the whole thing. Also standing there was my instructor. 

“Jeez it took you long enough” Aiden says to me.

 I reply with “Maybe you're just early” sounding like a robot because of how much I’m shaking. 

“Dude, chill out. You got this.” Aiden says as he tries to reassure me 

“Breathe. You got this. I know how much practice you've put into this, don’t worry!” My instructor says. I start to cool off. Still shaking, but calmer. I look up and there he is. Grandmaster Hong Kong Kim, the man who will be judging me tonight. 

“Better get up there and practice!” Aiden says right before the Grandmaster starts the test.

    He calls up our names one by one. 

“Evlin Dennin” He shouts. 

One of my friends stands up and shouts “Here Sir” ends with a bow, and goes to their designated spot. 

“Seth Mason” He shouts 

“Here Sir” I shout back as I bow. I then run to my spot and try to calm myself down. The names go by one after another but I’m not listing. The only thing I can hear is the negative voices telling me I’m going to fail. As he calls all of the upper belts down, he sends us to the walls of the room. I sit there, on the side of the room, head all over the place, and think about anything but the test to keep my mind off of it. Before I knew it, the lower belts had finished their test and the next group was being called up. My group

    We quickly line up and get into formation. My heart is racing and my head is bouncing all over the room. 

“YOU SETH” the grandmaster shouts my name 

“Yes Sir!” I respond with hoping for the best 

“You must lead the test for this part and tell the belts what form to do” he demands. I feel my heart sink to my stomach. I've never done this before. I don't know what to do! 

“Yes Sir” I reply as I step up in front of the class putting on a confident face as I tell each student to do the basic forms, their highest form, second highest, and one random form. I am sent back to my spot and I give off a sigh of relief. The next part of the test begins.

    The next part of the test is one steps. Back and forth basic fighting between two people. An easy part of the test. This gives me a chance to cool down before I have to break the boards. I get paired up with one of my friends, Evlin, and we do very well in one steps. Next, we go straight into free fighting which is exactly what it sounds like. Me and Evlin match up our distance and spar until time is up, making sure to show what we know. And then the part I was worried about, the breaking of the board.

    One by one, from the lowest rank to highest, I can feel how nervous I am. I hear the other people breaking their boards. CRACK! The crowd claps as the person next to me breaks their board first try. The secondary instructor and my instructor set up the cinder blocks. They place two boards, thicker than a slice of cake, on top of the cinder blocks. I ready my stance. I hear my family and friends calling out and cheering me on. That's when it hit me. What if I didn't break this, what if instead of breaking it, I broke my hand as my instructor had. I couldn't move. I was so nervous it felt like my arm weighed 100 pounds. I just couldn't move. I look up at my instructor as if it could somehow help. He looks back down at me and gestures to breathe. To calm down. I look around until I see the grandmaster’s cold dead eyes staring at me patiently. I look back at the boards and take a deep breath. I try to focus and drown out the noise. All of a sudden, I can’t hear anything. Everything goes silent. I start my swing. Everything is silent. Like I was swallowed by a dark void. Just me and the board. My arm is halfway through the air as I tighten my fist preparing for the downfall. I clench my fist so hard my nails dig into my skin. My arm comes down for the downfall faster than the blink of an eye. I felt the wood of the hard boards as I slammed my fist into the board. The gritty feeling of the wood grinding against my skin though I didn’t feel anything. My hand slipped right into the boards. And like a warm knife through butter, my fist dissected the two boards. And just like that, I had done it. I had achieved one of my greatest goals. I had shown what I have been practicing for. Everything I had done, the training, the memorization, everything had led up to this moment to show what I could do and I had done it. I had achieved my black belt and learned that I could do almost anything when I put my mind to it.