I’ve passed my test to get to Red II. We’ve started on the last set of Advanced-level material that I’ll learn. After I pass this, I’ll spend four months (minimum, and I have no plans on prolonging this period) as a Black Belt Candidate preparing for my Black level test. That’s four months where I won’t be learning new stuff. I’ll have that time to focus on sharpening up my techniques, my forms, and my sparring, because I’ll have to demonstrate every bit of material in our system that I’ve learned up to that point. I’ll also have to go through a pretty rough sparring test.

It’s a fairly strenuous test, all told: twelve levels of material over two nights, plus another night of sparring. The last thing I want to happen is to fail because I was too tired to perfom well, so I’m starting to ramp up my conditioning early. I’ve gone back to attending all the classes available to me on Tuesday and Thursday nights, nearly three hours of training. I replaced my running shoes so that I can do some roadwork, which any boxer will tell you is excellent for conditioning, and the dogs really like the exercise too. I’ll be hitting the stationary bike at home while I watch television or listen to podcasts. I joined the YMCA (eight metro locations in Jackson) so I can swim laps and take cardio classes. I’m also going to try to get together with other students for practice outside class as often as I can manage it. A bunch of us are meeting up at a park tomorrow morning. It should be pretty fun.