Sometimes all you need to pass a test, to go beyond your pain, is just a sign. And I found it. Just the day before.

Red. Now Green.

Last summer, after watching a cool documentary about Bruce Lee, and bored of my sports routine (running-football-roller skating), I joined the local kickboxing club. To convince me to join it Bruce Lee wasn't enough, though. The girls in the club were. Lot of nice girls. And I'm always sensible to girls.
Anyway, I never thought I could progress so fast. My tights and legs are quite big compared to the rest of the body. You know, after years, ages of running and football. So kicking in some other direction that the usual (side-kicks, or round-house kicks) was quite painful. And the more I extended my legs, the more pain I felt.

My grading was coming. Sunday morning, as usually. I always hated this idea of giving an examination on a Sunday morning. How can you be fast, be fit, and remember your syllabus on a Sunday morning at 9am? And how can you fight, kick and punch with the last night food still in your belly? Fortunately, due to my football matches, somehow I get used to it. But my last match was long ago, and, hey, I was starting to enjoy my Sunday morning naps.
But, unfortunately, just a week before the grading, while I was sparring, some girl kicked me with her heel in my calves. I felt a pain like a cramp, and for 5 days I couldn't walk. On Saturday, I still was in doubt. Try to grade, even if I was still limping? I needed a sign. I watched too many movies and I know that this not always happens. This time did.

Coming back from a shopping spree in Piccadilly, my bus stopped because of the traffic. This happens quite often, in London. But this time the time stopped to let the Olympic Flame go through. After so many years (last time was in 1948) the symbol of the Olympics games came back in London. And I was there (I didn't catch the previous bus, otherwise I would have miss the flame) and I remember of all the beautiful and dramatic stories about the Olympic Games. You know, training 4 years for a place in the history. Training 4 years to lost or finish fourth. Training 4 years just to be there.
God, I like the Olympic games.
Anyway, if someone could train and dream for 4 years I thought I could forget my pain for a while and do my grading.

And, as always, I did it. 
Thanks to Deep Freeze and huge cocktail of ibuprofen.
And now I'm a green belt. Stay alert, I'm getting dangerous. Just like Bruce Lee.
Almost.