Fun at belt test

[SaiFightsMS]

To be perfectly honest I had fun at test the last times I did weapons testing. I was confident with my weapon, my forms and my skills. When doing a form no one else was testing on I viewed it as a chance to give a good performance to show how impressive a great weapons kata could be.

I realize that sounds rather arrogant. And probably was. But it also helped set the bar for those who were coming up behind me later with the same weapon and kata.

That said I never really had fun testing for belt rank.

[FETKD]

Our black belt tests are incredibly strict, we only test one black belt candidate at a time.

Strict tests are a good way to measure a students performance under pressure and confidence in themselves. How ever our candidates are hand selected for each test (lower belts too) doesn't matter how long you've been at a certain belt, if we don't think you are ready then you don't test. So far we've only failed two students so things have gone pretty well.

We tell them let the butterflies in your stomach fuel you, let it give you an edge. Our students usually do well so it seems to work.

As for me, I've never had much problems with belt tests I've always tried to treat them as much like class as possible that way I stay relaxed. Even my black belt test, it was just me an my sensei, two people who live for the martial arts so we had a blast.