New junior 4th kyu in the house.

[aurik]

My son is currently 6 years old, and our sensei does things a fair bit differently for his 4-6 year old students. For one thing, the requirements for the "junior" belts (denoted by a -sho suffix, and a white stripe on the belt) are very different than those for the normal belts, and he doesn't have formal testing days for the junior classes -- when a kiddo is ready to test, he'll get him/her to demonstrate their material, and if he feels they've performed well enough, at the end of the class he will award them their next rank.

He and I had been discussing when Zach would be ready for his next rank, and he had given me some things to work on with him at home. I figured he was a week or two away from testing, but yesterday he proved me wrong. On Monday he had watched Zach as he performed Kanshiwa, and he also watched him do a few of the requirements from his previous tests. Yesterday he started out the class by asking Zach to help with the warmups, and then he started having individual students work with him on their rank-specific techniques while the other students watched. My son was the last to go (since he's the highest-ranked student in the class), and he did great! Sensei asked him to perform his techniques twice -- he made one mistake on the first go-round.

However, at the end of class, he announced several promotions, and Zach was one of them. So a big congratulations to the newest Yonkyu-sho in my house We're planning on having him work towards earning his junior brown belt before he ages out of the program (in July). Also, if he does earn the junior brown belt, that waives his time in rank requirement before he can test for his full yellow belt (kukyu).

I'm so proud of him.

https://i.imgur.com/C0yTkEV.jpg

Edited April 4, 2019 by aurik

[Chunmonchek]

My Congratulations to Zach!!!

[sensei8]

Congrats to Zach across the board for earning his 4th Kyu; a milestone achieved in his MA journey!!

[bushido_man96]

Congrats!

[JR 137]

Congratulations to your son. Is it just me, or are we somehow more proud and it’s more special when our kids do something than when we do it?

My happiest day in karate was the first time I tied my daughter’s belt on and she walked onto the floor for her first class. I’ve got countless great memories (and many more on the way) of stuff I’ve done in the dojo, but they all pale in comparison.

Again, congratulations to both of you!

[aurik]

Congratulations to your son. Is it just me, or are we somehow more proud and it’s more special when our kids do something than when we do it?

My happiest day in karate was the first time I tied my daughter’s belt on and she walked onto the floor for her first class. I’ve got countless great memories (and many more on the way) of stuff I’ve done in the dojo, but they all pale in comparison.

Again, congratulations to both of you!

So today I had my test (and passed) for hachikyu. It was a very... interesting test. My sensei runs kyu tests every month, and this month we had a total of 25 students testing for ranks from kyukyu all the way up to ikkyu. As to be expected, the vast majority of the students were kids, with 3 adults (including myself). With the way our material breaks down, the students testing for 9th-7th kyu are run in one group (testing for yellow belt ranks), the students testing for 6th-4th kyu are in another group (testing for green belt ranks), and the ones testing for 3rd, 2nd, and 1st kyu were tested separately.

I knew it was going to be a very.. interesting test fairly early on. Some of the kids were messing up their drills pretty badly -- and our Sensei wasn't having any of it. If someone made a gross mistake, he'd tell him/her to do it again. Several students had to perform their drills multiple times. One of the students testing for nikyu got LOTS of corrections in his techniques and had to re-do his bunkai several times. I know I made a few mistakes along the way, but they were apparently minor enough to not warrant re-doing any techniques.

Afterwards, I got some corrections on my techniques by the black belt in charge of my group. I need to make my circle blocks bigger (I'm apparently not covering my face everytime), and there are a few techniques I made some minor mistakes on. She did compliment me on my speed and power, but she said I should probably dial it back a hair, because I was getting gassed a few times out there. Of course, she also said her father had the same problem until he made black belt (he's now a sandan).

My wife and Zach were there for most of the testing, but they had to leave a little early to get Zach to his friend's birthday party. However, when I caught up with them after the party, my wife told me that Zach noticed that of all the students that were getting yelled at or corrected, I was not one of them. And my wife said, "That's because daddy was prepared". More than anything else, that made me feel super proud -- even more proud than passing the test.

[bushido_man96]

It sounds like you had a great testing! If you leave with some notes on things to improve, then you're on the right track, for sure.

Congrats to you!

[Patrick]

Congrats! Thanks for sharing this with us.

[wagnerk]

Awesome, major congrats to your son

[Fat Cobra]

Awesome! Congratulations.