Starting my blog and thoughts on martial arts training and my road to the black belt. I still feel a novice after 10 months in takewondo (WTF style), but I enjoy it enormously at all levels, both as a sport and a way of life. I wish I started to practice martial arts earlier (I'm 40 years old), but as I grew up in Russia, it was practically impossible to do any martial arts, especially for a woman. However, now in the USA I have this opportunity for at last next 6 months and is surprised how many choices/possibilities people have here.Up to now my best achievements are double testing for belts, 2nd place in the poomsae competitions and 1st place in the intra-school sparring competitions. I'm testing for the next belt this Friday and will enjoy it, although as usual, I would be a bit nervous, epecially with the back spinning kick technique. I have to go back to Russia to Moscow in 6 months, but I'm detrmined now to find a way to continue training and if possible, yes, if possible, make it to the black belt. I know that I would probably have to start from begining due to differences in curriculum, I would have to persuade people to train an adult (99% of schools in Russia train only children) and I would probably have to go to Korea to get tested (there seems to be no centers that test adults for black belts in Moscow)... But I hope I can do this. Well, I still have 6 months to enjoy life and taekwondo here.