breaking through

This is a recent picture of me breaking two wooden boards during a Taekwondo test ... but don't look at my face it's quite scary to behold.  Plus I'm closing my eyes for some reason.  At this point I am a brown belt which is just one color away from black belt.  I've actually been learning some cool things but apparently you don't learn the really cool stuff until you get into the black belt phase of the training:  things like street fighting and knife fighting and other pummeling acts of violence.  I have to laugh at myself sometimes because I love it but I hate violence just for violence.  This becomes far more apparent when we spar with each other.  We gear up in pads and whatnot to protect our vitals and go at it.  Each time I've engaged in this type of training I always end up laughing or lightly hitting my opponent.  Perhaps it's the light atmosphere of the training or the equal mirth expressed by my opponent ... or maybe I just don't take it serious enough to want to genuinely hurt someone.  Either way it's still a lot of fun ... I supposed I've learned of myself through this that I really do abhor violence that is needless and would rather laugh than to inflict hurt on another.  Man I sound really soft right now ... I would like to say that in the given situation I could hold my own by way of fisticuffs but I have really never had to so something like that so how could I truly know at this point.  May I never have to use what I've learned ... this is what I want to get at.  But I do feel I would like to use my skills on my brother-in-law Chris Rattigan just because I feel it would be fun and give me some laughs.