One of the most important parts of a cultural tradition is the uniform. It is rare to find a traditional dance or martial art that doesn’t require a uniform. Taekwondo is no different, the required garb being the dobok. A dobok, literally translating to “correct way clothing,” consists of a loose-fitting and long shirt and pants of the same material, often white.

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My first dobok was given to me when I was four. Well, as I corrected Sifu Nick, four and a half. Most of my life in Florida blurs together in my mind, but this moment is clear in my head, looking at my shadow on the sidewalk on my family’s way into the dojang. I blinked at the people kicking and punching as I sat behind the stretching bars and thinking, “Could I do that, too?”

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Normally, people have to wear shirts under their doboks. Well, technically guys don’t have to, but my sister and I always had to. It didn’t have to be anything special, it just had to be a white t-shirt. I still have a pile in the back of my closet of white shirts that I would cycle through for class. Wearing the shirts underneath made things easier, letting us take off our dobok shirt after Taekwondo classes when we were sweaty and didn’t want to look awkward trudging into the nearby Burger King in full uniform.

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My second dobok was given to my when I was six. We had just moved to North Carolina, and were checking out Black Belt World, where we would continue our Taekwondo education. Master Mona, a friendly lady at the reception desk, handed it to me and taught me how to say thank you in Korean: “kamsahamnida.”

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How to tie a belt in Taekwondo:

1) Making sure it’s even on both sides, place the center of the belt at your belly.
2) Wrap both sides around you once.
3) Cross both sides loosely. This is the time to adjust to make sure you have breathing room.
4) Tie the final knot.
Tip: Mobility is key! You can’t do a tornado roundhouse kick if you can’t breathe or move!

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I became a first degree black belt when I was ten. Well--at least that’s what’s officially on paper. Instead of a completely black belt, it was half red and half black. Apparently they don’t allow people thirteen or younger to get a black belt. The reason? I still have no idea. The thought of it makes my hands itch with the desire to punch one of the dusty punching paddles that sit in my attic. It had my name embroidered on it in English and Korean, in thick gold thread that I liked to trace over and over again, trying to find which characters corresponded with which syllables in my name. The black belt also came with a new dobok with my name and a single white stripe on its black collar, which did manage to give me at least a vague sense of professionalism in my rank. When classmates from my elementary school asked me to show it to them, however, all of that professionalism is gone at their puzzled looks.There’s no satisfaction in saying, “I have a black belt-- well, not fully black, but technically black.” Not for me, while all the adults around me are rewarded with normal black belts. I’m left going to high-level black belt classes, repeatedly tucking my dobok’s flaps beneath the new belt, feeling like all eyes were on me, the odd one out. Before, I could pretend that I wasn’t the youngest in my classes, that the fact that some fellow students were twice my height could be ignored, but the flash of red in a row of black belts made me impossible to miss.

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For some reason, all of my Taekwondo instructors seemed to have silently agreed that the only productive temperature in which to practice the martial art was at levels akin to what someone experiences within a sauna. The average temperature during our workouts inside was eighty degrees Fahrenheit, and I swear to God that I once saw Master David turn it up to ninety-two. This kind of temperature, mixed with the tough workouts, creates quite an amount of sweat in the human body. These effects were seen especially when everyone had to take off their sparring clothes at the end of classes. My otherwise stubbornly straight hair curled wildly in the presence of sweat, and I would have to actually wipe down my shin guards, but the worst part was the feeling of a dobok weighed down with sweat, like an inescapable sweaty hug. Those days, I didn’t even bother waiting for class to officially end-- I would immediately rip off my dobok to reveal the shirt below.

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When I became a second degree black belt, I still didn’t get the solid black I was hoping for. Still the same old half-and-half, except this time I got two stripes at its end and two white stripes on the collar of my new dobok. Our final ceremony was done outside for the first time. I never liked doing classes outside.

The birds sang, the flowers bloomed, and the sun’s rays beat down on the black belt graduates like biblical tongues of flame. While the fresh air was nice, its stillness quickly became a curse, only giving way to a breeze every now and then only to blow pollen or a cloud of gnats into my face, to which my newly-diagnosed asthma protested greatly. When they are given to us, our doboks and belts are incredibly stiff, but the sweat that pooled in our armpits and the bases of our neck quickly softened the material, the saturation pressing the thick clothes to our skin. The ceremonial candles that we held dripped wax onto the long grass below, only adding more heat to the oppressive April air as the heavy weight of a dobok sticky with sweat bore down on us all. When the ceremony was over and I was done taking pictures with my classmates (the majority of them towering over me, of course), I realized that my feet, which had shifted constantly in my squeaky floral flip flops during the ceremony, were covered in bug bites.

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The Ten Taekwondo Commandments

(Note: say it together at the end of class, following the master’s count.)

1) I will be loyal to my country.
2) I will respect my parents.
3) I will be loving to my family.
4) I will cooperate with others.
5) I will be faithful to my friends.
6) I will respect my elders and care for my juniors.
7) I will be honest at all times.
8) I will be compassionate to others.
9) I will never use Taekwondo against other people.
10) I will always finish what I start *at top of lungs* SIR!
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It was early April when my third and last degree black belt rested in my hands. My thirteenth birthday was that May. I would never get the solid black belt that I wanted so desperately. The “graduating” class was the smallest that it had ever been, squeezed into a tiny locale that still smelled like new paint. The headquarters location in Knightdale was already gone, the koi pond by which I inhaled Harry Potter books murky and dead, and the stone lions engraved with the five tenets of Taekwondo (and my favorite place to hide behind when playing hide-and-go-seek with other kids) eroded and forgotten. The North Raleigh location-- where I received my second ever dobok and watched my sister practice on the Demo team with other older kids-- was also already gone, painted over and for sale. It’s still completely empty today, mournfully dark windows crying out to me whenever I drive by on the way home. The pats on the back and the hugs I was given were genuine, but it felt hollow to me. Master David, the man I had known since he traveled here from Korea and taught me how to do splits, and Master Kira, the woman I had known since she started nursing school only to quit, had moved together to California as newlyweds (I attended the wedding) to start their own dojang.  Any congratulations felt empty, as the places and people that drew me to go as far as I did for Taekwondo were gone. It was the end, but I was too swallowed by bitterness to care. The single stripe on the collar of my dobok was yellow now, but so what? It’s not like I would ever wear it again. I went to the bathroom of the dojang of a building I painted and helped put together, and took off my new dobok and my new belt. I slipped on a leotard, smacked my lips with lipstick, and blinked on some mascara. There was no time to think about the era I was leaving behind. After all, I had my first ever dress rehearsal for a musical in an hour.