Mine was I would say red belt.Because of fitness aspect.I am 34 yrs old thats why I said the red belt.

Probably my 3rd dan in TKD about 2.5 years ago. I'd recently split up with my long term girlfriend (back together now) and had a flu bug the week leading up to the grading so I wasn't in the best mental or physical state to begin with. The forms seemed to go on and on. By the time it came to the latter rounds of sparring - 2 on 1 and with takedowns and then destruction I was struggling. I don't really remember the fitness test at the end as I just tried to shut my mind off and kept going. I could have done some individual things better, but I think I made good account of myself at the time.

2nd dan is a close second it wasn't technically as hard, but my physical preparation was poor. I ended up vomiting in the toilet(just made it!) at the end of the fitness test.

I would say that the 1st has to be a contender because of nerves, other than that the most recent is always the toughest for me as I'm required to step up my fitness each time.

I'm up for red belt (TKD) next month.

Black belt will be a tough one as our fitness test is a 1 mile run, 100 press ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squat thrusts and 6 90 second rounds on the bags (2 hand only, 2 feet only 2 feet and hands. The bag work is with the senior instructors shouting at you to keep the work rate up and there is about 30 second break between between rounds.

To be honest its the bag work that I'm dreading the running and exercises I can do already, but I'll have to put in a lot of work on stamina and endurance, for that.

I think going for my blue belt was hard because I had a cold so I had that horrible cold sweat all the way through my grading.

I pitied the poor bloke I had to spare against, a runny nose and spin kicks make a bit of a mess!

definitely my 4th dan. The test istelf was an endeavor, but you also have to take into account the 6 months of work that preceded it as a requirement before I could test.

So far my Green Belt 4th Kyu was my hardest. I have moved up since then but that grading was tough and I wanted it so bad I was shining with sweat!

Actually this leads me to another thought which I will create a thread on. About how you prefer to be graded...

My 1st Dan without a shadow of a doubt. It was conducted over 3 nights, on one the entire sylabus had to be technically demonstrated including breakfalls on a concrete floor! one night of sparring and demonstrating the techniques from various attacks and one night of Kata, Katsu and talk throughs.

dmccarthy wrote:
definitely my 4th dan. The test istelf was an endeavor, but you also have to take into account the 6 months of work that preceded it as a requirement before I could test.

Come on Dan don't just leave the post like that, give them the details of what I made you do BEFORE you could test (LOL)

My most difficult test would have to be my 3rd Dan at Iowa State University it was my last test there and I think that made that test the hardest on me that I have ever taken.

Despite only being 3 hours away I just don't have a occupation that allows for such training trips.

Well going for my black belt was certainly the most expensive - hmmpp!