Black Belt Testing Traditions

[SBN Doug]

My school Master was telling us a little about his last test. (He and his wife are 8th degree and Grandmaster is 10th.)

He was commenting on how strange it feels when the Grandmaster is there with just the 2 of them, they go through all their material, and he is disecting every little move.

[IcemanSK]

Hah funny you should say that...it was the fighting part we wasn't allowed to watch

Their Kata's were awesome. One guy grading for his third dan was lucky cos sensei allowed him 3 chances because he kept kia'ing in the wrong place, bless him he was shattered after that.

Ha ha, yeah, I'm much more worried about looking bad during forms, too. At my test, there was a guy who did a new thing wrong each time he did a certain form. He caught a lot of grief for it, too. My GM feels that it's better that his students don't see him get dressed down for it. Personally, I'm grateful, too

[kingebret]

Only the Judges, candidate and Uki are allowed.

How is it with testing at other Dojos?

For us, each student was allowed to invite 3 guests. Since most were kids, that usually meant 2 parents and a grandparent or sibling (many have siblings also training). Camcorders are usually not allowed, I think, but no one told us that and we all filmed the test (discreetly)--we didn't find out till the end that we shouldn't have. I think they forbid it so that you can't argue with the decision of the judges. No one took still photos the day we were there, but I think flash photos would have been more distracting than video.

We weren't seated near the candidates. In fact, there weren't enough chairs for us. People went out to their cars and brought in their folding chairs (the kind you bring to picnics!) Kind of tacky not to provide chairs for the old folks, I think, for a 3-hour test....