I'm a motherfucking red belt. Graded this morning. Apparently pass mark of 100%.

It's an odd feeling. I don't think I deserve it, but I never do? All blue belts grading together managed to get a red belt instead of a red stripe. I would be more up for disputing it bar two things: 1) P, the blue stripe, was told he wouldn't be double grading when he finished, that he wasn't ready to be red stripe, and 2) it still hasn't sunk in yet.

My head really hurts at the moment. We started at 10:30 this morning, and I left the dojang at 15:00. So a long day. We did drills, which took me a little while to get into, I was pretty fookin' nervous. We then did patterns, which I actually managed to remember! Last time I mega-messed up, the only area I lost points in. This time it all went smoothly as fuck (actually I messed up bit but correctly myself quickly enough that it looked like part of the pattern. OH YEAH, PLAYA). We moved onto one step and then some self defence. Then we did some cardio tests with the sparring gear on. I did well on that part, since I drill it outside the club. My cardio was the best there out of the blue belts, which is nice, because it shows the work I put in outside of alloted class time. Then we did fighting, three rounds of one-on-one, and then two rounds of two-on-one. I've never fought two-on-one before, and it was pretty hard. I took a fair few hits as sacrifice for moving, and that is why my head hurts right now. After the fighting was theory, the finishing part of the grading.

The fighting was interesting. I made one of my sparring partners cry, but because I didn't want him to fail based on an injury, I coached him through the match when he was about the give up. He earned his red belt today. The other one-on-one fights were okayish, nothing unusual. The two-on-one was again, pretty interesting. One of the rounds I had a little guy and a tall guy. At one point I turned my back on the lil' guy, 'cause I knew he couldn't do much damage, and just went for the taller one full pelt. He didn't enjoy that much! But it worked. With multiple opponents, stay out of the middle, line them up so you can take them on one at a time. Fact. The masters said as a woman, I take one fucking hell of a beating and keep going. It's true, I get hit a lot but it doesn't bother me much. They said even a lot of men can't take the beating I do, and it's one of the reasons they liked me from day one, I didn't back down, I just got up and went for it again, which is rare in fighters and especially women fighters. I want to show the lower grade women of the club how to be as good as the guys (not that we aren't already, but sometimes in a male dominated class, it can feel that way).

Self defence was a larf. I was with a black tag, and I may have been nervous and on edge enough that I hit him pretty hard a few times. At one point, he thought he'd be cocky and 'try something a little different', so he tried to strangle choke me around the neck. As he did so, I asked if he was sure he wanted to do that. He said yes. So (slightly quicker, more accurately and powerfully then I thought myself capable of) I jabbed him in the throat, and he choked and let go instantly. The master panels wet themselves.

So all around, an awesome grading. Can't believe I got 100%. And that I double graded. wtf. Now I just have to mainly work on flexibility and spinning kicks, according to my head master. I can do that!

I could not have graded, as far as I'm concerned, if it wasn't for the help of FP. We spent 6 hours after work yesterday going through things. He beat the shit out of my several times, I ended up on the floor more than him, and he put up with my bullshit breakdowns and hissy fits through the entire time. Because of the things we'd gone through, and he didn't let me take the easy route, when I actually came to do them on weaker people, it was so much easier than I anticipated. FP is a fucking saint for putting up with how I was acting.

His shoulder came out just before grading today, so he didn't get to grade. He's worked so hard, that I could feel him just... die a bit inside when he was told to not grade. He stayed to cheer me on, even though he could've just been consumed by the asshole-ish situation he was put in. They're going to grade him separately... just when his shoulder is back in. On that note, I got the watch one of the masters put his shoulder back in. Fuckin' weird! The entire shoulder blade was like.. half way down his back. Master K had to man handle it back in with such force! Then he had to pop the shoulder joint back in, too. FP's legs went from under him both times. Interesting to watch. I probably looked well morbid, watching that, ahaha. OH WELL!

I am still headachey, so I'm going to stop here. Might be training in the morning now, as well as gym at lunch and training after work. I have two months before my black tag. Fucking hell, is all I can say.