passed my yellow belt grading!

[Blade96]

Am 8th kyu now!

not a white belt anymore.

(then again I heard someone say that white belt is the most important belt...for without them there can be no black belts....soooo guess i aint as important anymore....hehe)

Test was a lot of fun. You were right....the first KIAI i gave - and i made them very loud cause i also read somewhere that it can wake up the judges cause they might get bored sometimes - made nerves go away.

Think I'll tell about it....there might be people who'd like to know a bit about what happens at one the same way I wanted to know. This is what happened at mine.

we lined up at the command shugo as always - but we were told to stand in front, those who graded, and BB's were in back. was so they could see us. Then we were put through the Tsuruoka sequence - a sequence named of course after the famous founder of karate in Canada, Masami Tsuruoka sensei (and my sensei's teacher. well him and Hidetaka Nishiyama sensei, a student of Funakoshi o sensei were both my teacher's teachers. Like I said, good lineage.) I was the only one to do it right with each block every time. The other 2 white belts fluffed it. I could see them out of the corner of my eyes. Then we did seiken zuki, first normally, then in kiba dachi stance. then we did oi zuki, then the blocks moving forward. Then gyaku zuki which i fluffed, but it didnt count against me because its not part of white belt testing. (i know it but when you've learned to oi zuki then gyaku zuki takes some getting used to.) Then we did mae geri keage zenkutsu dachi then kiba dachi with yoko.

Then we did our kata. first as a group then each of us was called up individually to do it. One of the white belts temporarily forgot his shutos at the end of it. Me and the other white belt did it perfectly though.

then we did ippon kumite which I did perfectly without any mistakes.

Then the higher belt levels testing did their stuff. Yellow belt testing for orange did his stuff right and his heian nidan and his kumite and sparring were good. But poor blue belt testing for brown wasnt so lucky. Poor guy, he had injured his knee some weeks before so when he did the jump in Heian Godan kata he stumbled a bit. didnt fall, but his landing wasnt perfect. Also, when he did his kumite, he nearly passed out! when done just walked to the wall and collapsed! Was breathing so hard I thought he might have a heart attack or something. His breaths literally sounded like bellows. No joke.

anyway we all passed. Nobody failed. not even the nearly dead blue belt who is now brown. Of us three white now yellow belts, only I escaped criticism though. With the other 2, the black belts who give their opinions, and the senseis who make the final decision, it was kind of like 'you earned your yellow but you need to work on this, this, and this' With me though, sensei turned to me and said Unanimous agreement from everyone. And not a word of criticism, even constructive. Absolutely perfect. I thought they were a bi9t harsh on the half dead guy though. They criticised his kata. 'you can do a better kata than this' Yes, but he'd hurt his knee! They also criticized his breathing. which i suppose made sense.

I went to a bar downtown with some of the higher belts and the 2 senseis of course. I sat between sempai and sensei. Both of them bought me drinks (white russians cause they know I love those) and fed me french fries, chicken wings and onion rings. Had a great time for several hours. Talked about everything....a lot of it was olympic talk. Both my sensei and I are hockey fans and fans of the Detroit Red Wings of the NHL.

Then came home and watched canada almost lose to the Czechs in the ice hockey olympic game. (we almost didnt make it to the gold medal game!) Then went to bed and passed out myself because I was tired too.

But I had a great time yesterday.......loved it! Hehehe.

I got my new belt this morning.

[GeoGiant]

Congrads!

I just tested, passed, and received my yellow belt a few days ago. I have to speak in public sometimes so getting up in front of people never bothered me... or so i thought. About an hour before my test I thought I was going to jump out of my skin! I performed my katas without a problem although I was told that I was a bit mechanical on the first one. The feeling of passing was GREAT! Because my test started at 7:30 pm on a week night and everyone wasn't finished until 9 pm no one went out after but I managed to celebrate with a few pints at home!

Good luck in the future.

[Lupin1]

Congrats, Blade! I knew you wouldn't have any trouble with it!

[Blade96]

Congrads!

I just tested, passed, and received my yellow belt a few days ago. I have to speak in public sometimes so getting up in front of people never bothered me... or so i thought. About an hour before my test I thought I was going to jump out of my skin! I performed my katas without a problem although I was told that I was a bit mechanical on the first one. The feeling of passing was GREAT! Because my test started at 7:30 pm on a week night and everyone wasn't finished until 9 pm no one went out after but I managed to celebrate with a few pints at home!

Good luck in the future.

Thanks. Yeah, that passing feeling is a pocketful of fly!!!!

thanks Lupin. btw. You're next! Hope you get that rank of yours too!

[Lupin1]

thanks Lupin. btw. You're next! Hope you get that rank of yours too!

Ehh, I don't even know if he's going to give it to me at this point. I've been working on the yellow belt stuff for a few weeks now. From when I was a kid I knew the first yellow belt kata and 3/4ths of the second yellow belt kata, and he's working with me on the second kata, so I guess the 1st kata is good enough for him for now. Since I'm that far in and he hasn't mentioned me wearing my yellow belt again yet, at this point I'm thinking he may just keep me at white until I earn my blue belt (5th kyu) which at the rate I'm going will probably be around the beginning of summer. But then again I may be wrong. I'm ok with it, either way.

Congrats again!

[Jeffrey]

Nice going Blade96. Congats on the yellow belt.

[Patrick]

Congrats Blade96.

[tallgeese]

Congrats!

[Kuma]

Congratulations. The first step on what sounds to be an enjoyable journey for you.

[Blade96]

Enjoyable? Oh, very much.

Thanks for the congrats everyone!

I look forward to learning now the 8th kyu portion of my training!

(and work on that gyaku zuki - durrrrr)

Thanks all!

~ Ooooooossssssss! ~