Black Belt promotionals

[Nidankid23]

I was just curious to those black belts out there what their black belt promotionals consisted of. For instance, mine was about 4 1/2 hours long: 20 minutes of speeches, 30 minutes of warming up excersises, an hour of intense drills and technique combinations, another hour of doing our entire past of katas, about another fifty minutes of self defenses against eachother, another hour of sparring eachother and our extreme higher ranks. Just curious about other's experiences.

[JWLuiza]

Hey NidanKid,

You can search the forums, the black belt test has at least one thread with multiple responses to the "What's your black belt test like?" question. I've posted mine there.

[NidaninNJ]

I was just curious to those black belts out there what their black belt promotionals consisted of. For instance, mine was about 4 1/2 hours long: 20 minutes of speeches, 30 minutes of warming up excersises, an hour of intense drills and technique combinations, another hour of doing our entire past of katas, about another fifty minutes of self defenses against eachother, another hour of sparring eachother and our extreme higher ranks. Just curious about other's experiences.

What is the 'speech' about? Was this just a really long workout or was there an actual test in there somewhere? I've always been with the JKA and its offshoots so I've only ever seen the short tests that are just basics, sparring and kata...20 minutes floor time, max, for each person. What is the point of all the rest?

[jaymac]

My test lasted a total of 4 and 1/2 hours. I did however come in one night the week of the testing to take a written exam lasting one hour. My technical portion of the exam consisted knowledge of the style, kata, weapons defenses, self defense against punches, kicks, and all required releases, kata, and in between all of that was periods when we were doing 200 push ups, 150 sit ups, other forms of exercise, sparring, etc... My thought of its purpose was just to exhaust you. Everyone earned their right to be at that black belt testing. I know I knew my stuff, but after actually going through it, I felt I really earned it. Man, I was sore for a week!

[NidaninNJ]

My test lasted a total of 4 and 1/2 hours. I did however come in one night the week of the testing to take a written exam lasting one hour. My technical portion of the exam consisted knowledge of the style, kata, weapons defenses, self defense against punches, kicks, and all required releases, kata, and in between all of that was periods when we were doing 200 push ups, 150 sit ups, other forms of exercise, sparring, etc... My thought of its purpose was just to exhaust you. Everyone earned their right to be at that black belt testing. I know I knew my stuff, but after actually going through it, I felt I really earned it. Man, I was sore for a week!

I've heard of this sort of thing for the non-traditional schools. But you list yourself as 'Shotokan' and I don't know of any Shotokan organization that works this way. ??? I see the point of making sure the students feel they 'earned' the rank and therefore go through more than just karate. But I think you need to draw the line somewhere. Like I know of one place - NOT traditional at ALL - where they have a weekend camping trip as part of the exam. I don't get it. That's just way too much, I think. Maybe we should do more than just 20 minutes of basics, sparring and kata. I like the written exam idea and wish we had that at any of the places I train. But I don't know about the rest. It just seems like too much to me. Is this stuff now considered normal??? Maybe I'm too much of a traditionalist?

[ninjanurse]

Moving this to Testing and Grading. See you there!

[jaymac]

Thanks for your opinion nidaninNj, I think it is just something that my instructor learned from his instructor and his instructor learned from his and so on and so on. It is traditional in their dojo. Every school is different as we can obviously see and read in this awesome forum. Our dojo isn't governed by any organization, so our testings are done as seen fit by the head instructor. His Testings are even harder. I am proud to have actually gotten to participate in a test that I feel really tested me physically. It was a great experience. And yes, I knew all my required techniques quite well prior to testing. The dan testing is quite different from kyu testing which only last one hour.

[isshinryu5toforever]

I'm not allowed to discuss the full details of my test, but it took something like 6 hours for shodan. The best test I heard about however happened to an older gentleman who is a student of a my instructor's good friend. He's in his mid to late 60s, and he's a good ole Midwestern guy so he's a drinker. At 11 PM on a Saturday night his sensei called his cell phone and said, "You have 15 minutes to get to my ranch in uniform for your black belt test, or you will never be allowed to test." He ran out to his truck, went home and got dressed as he ran out his door and drove to the ranch. He got there with 30 seconds to spare. His sensei said, "Ok run laps staying just within the tree line until I tell you to stop, and then walk about 25 feet into the woods and do all your katas." It was around midnight, there was no moon out, the guy thought to himself "I bet he can't see me" (which he couldn't) but then he though, "But if he can I better finish my katas or he's going to kick my ---" The rest of the belt test was the basic stuff, pushups, situps, basics, self-defense, sparring, etc. It got done at 9 AM the next morning, and he passed his black belt test.

[Isshinryu_heart]

I havent tested for black belt yet, but in my school it's a 24 hour test. Sometime in the middle of the night you have to go on a 3 mile run, fight all the black belts, perform all the katas you know regular side and opposite side, and make up bunkai for them. That's the stuff that everyone knows is on the test, but I'm sure there are other things. Every time someone tests for black belt, the next morning their gis (usually white) are pretty much the same shade of brown as their belt.

And somehow, this is something I look forward to.

[Belasko]

I get the impression that some instructors just enjoy torturing their students. I think I'll stick to what we do... Current forms plus 3 of the earlier forms chosen at random, 3 step and 1 step sparring, self defense, instant sparring, free sparring (usually 5 different people your rank or higher), and a 3 board break w/ a hand technique and again w/ a foot technique.