RedRobinAlchemist

I’m a 1st degree brown belt in American Kenpo karate. Once you get your green belt, you have to go through what they call pretesting to get the next 5 belts and your blackbelt (so once a green belt, you’ve gotta do the testing for your 3rd degree brown belt, and then against for your 2nd, again for your first, again for your brown-black, and then once more for black. After that, you can do it again and again to climb up the degrees of black). So I’ve gone through the testing 3 times now, and during the testings they litteraly, no exaggeration, make you and your entire group (which can, and often does, consist of people ranging from ages 7 to 60) do countless amounts of push-ups, sit-ups, squats, leg-lifts, punches, kicks, and those run then hit the ground and get back up things they make football players do and other various excercises, all during a 6 week period. They normally make you do push-ups in sets of 100s and if you stop, go to your knees, or you’re not going low enough, you get yelled at and sometimes have to start over if it’s bad enough. It doesn’t matter what type of push-ups you do, whether knuckle push-ups, triangle push-ups, or even clapping push-ups, they don’t expect you to give up or go to your knees and they do expect you to touch your chest to the ground each time.

So I kinda had to force myself to do the 100 push-ups, and honestly push-ups in general aren’t things that come easy for 14-year old girls. But I did what I had to do and although I wouldn’t recommend doing it the way I had to, knowing you can do 100 push ups is a skill you can have and look at with pride.

I’ve been playing the piano for about 6 years now since I was in 2nd grade. I’m glad to say I was never one of those kids who only did it cause their parents made them or hated practicing. I truly love the instrument and it made me have a greater appriciation for music in general. I remember once I played for 7 hours straight for no reason other than it’s really fun once you start playing stuff you know and you start writing your own stuff. I’lll continue to play for the rest of my life, and I highly recommend learning how to play. It’s not really easy, but if you work hard and are patience, it’s a gift you’ll be able to cherish forever.