Personal Narrative: Taekwondo Competition

My hands were shaking, and so were my ankles. I had competed at a national taekwondo competition with no fear, and a high school dance team tryout was scaring me. The coach called me to the gym with one other girl. We had to do kicks, leaps, and turns for the technique part. I managed to do okay, because I could have soaring kicks, with years of my previous taekwondo training.

“Okay, so get ready to do the dance, and show some power!” the coach, Krissy, said.

What if I fall, and what if I forget the dance, I thought? I felt the nerves slowly dilute as the music began to play, Game Time by Flo Rida. Yes, I was confident, but not the best. That didn’t really matter though because I was untroubled.

One week before the dance tryouts, I had a taekwondo competition. It was in Florida and I flew in for two days. Eventually, it was my turn to compete in poomsae, a

Why am I even doing taekwondo?

I stuck with it though, and over many years I learned how to show some confidence. My new confidence was also because I had become closer with everyone at my taekwondo school. I had friends that were amazing, and there were new students that got to know me when I helped instruct their class. People knew who I was, and as my rank got higher, others expected more from me.

There was one particular day of taekwondo class when I realized that I needed to stop it. On a Tuesday I had a normal taekwondo class but we were working on flying sidekicks. My specialty for this kick was jumping distance then breaking a board in the air. For my upcoming test we had to run, jump the highest as possible, then break the board. It was definitely out of my comfort zone.

I stood in a line, with other black belts that were a lower level than me. All of us could jump over four kicking pads stacked up on each other. I was getting comfortable with the kick when my master, Master KJ said, “Good job! Now add a fifth layer to