Testing Reflections, 10/3/2024

[bushido_man96]

Testing notes:  10/3/2024, Sun Yi’s Academy, Hays, KS

This was a small testing (we have quite a few small ones anymore), only four testing:  three low-orange belts and one low-green belt.  We had three black belts in attendance as well (not counting me and the CI), so a brief warm-up of basics was done and then the black belts demonstrated their forms, some one-steps, and did some board breaks.  Even though the black belts aren’t testing, I still use it as a time to evaluate what they do.  We didn’t have enough wood boards for the breaking, so we used the re-breakable boards we have at the school.  I even had a little fun and did a ridge hand strike, which might have been a first for me.

As I mentioned, three low-orange and one low-green belt tested.  It’s that awkward low-rank to just getting into the intermediate ranks phase.  I find students either think about things way to much or not enough.  Here are my notes (and I do share these with the students as a whole at the end of testing):

Take time to target on one-steps (even the black belts).   When we teach the one-steps, we show the vital points/areas we want the strikes to target.  Some students get carried away with either the move combinations that they go fast and miss a target (like a knife hand strike going down to a hip and not into the ribs/side area), or in the case of lower ranks, they are not focusing on targets at all and are just doing the techniques.  I implored the students to be more cognizant of this going forward.

Completion/flow.  I saw either too much flow, and techniques got run together and stance got sloppy, or I saw too much completion, resulting in deliberate and extended separation of techniques (too much pause).  Too much completion results in no rhythm in the hyung.  The orange belts were flowing too fast and not completing their techniques or finishing their stances.  The green belt was taking too long between techniques, making the hyung look like 24 separate movements.  I challenged the students going forward to go find the happy medium between the two.  They have to go beyond just rote memorization of the material.  The CI made a good point; he said, “you have to put some of you in the form.”

Along the same lines on the notes on one-steps, the students need to be cognizant of where the targets are in sparring.  During testing sparring, there were a few times where kicks were thrown to the back, which is not a legal target for us.  Alongside this, is knowing where your technique is going when you execute it.  I also emphasized the need to improve blocking and guarding in sparring.  I see too much of a hand poking toward an incoming kick instead of performing a good blocking technique or getting the arms into a solid defensive guarding position.  Body position was a point as well.  I saw a few times where students would square their bodies to their opponents, giving lots of target opportunities.  I emphasized staying more bladed to present fewer targets.  Granted, a lot of this could be cleaned up when working on sparring in class, which needs to happen more often.  The students have been sparring more, but I am of the opinion that more focused drilling needs to be done in order to help shore up these issues.  Often times, the students will spar, instructors observe, then give advice when the round is over.  This is ok for some, but not all students will just “listen and apply.”  Some need the drilling to familiarize their bodies with the positioning and to see it play out in real time.

The last thing I did notice, but the CI mentioned (I failed to do so) is that all the low rank student’s sparring offense was good.  They were putting combinations together of strikes and kicks, and multiple kick combinations.  So many times, I see lower ranks be more timid, and they tend to move in, throw one technique, and then fail to follow up and leave themselves open to being attacked, or they will bounce away or fall away after a kick, giving up the ground they just gained.  Their offensive mindset was good overall.

In conclusion, there is some technical clean-up I’d like to see take place between now and the next testing with these students.  But their progress is good so far.

[sensei8]

Excellent post, Brian!! Thank you for sharing it.  

TBH, I prefer a small Testing Cycle versus a sea of candidates because both the intimacy and effectiveness of the Testing Cycle can wain a tad away which things can be missed by those on the testing panel...quite unacceptable, imho!!

Nice that there were black belts executing a number of things which helps the more advanced students, like yourself, and calms down those testing candidates. Ridge hands are fun to break things with especially if the break fails. One of the most telling techniques whenever the ridge hand doesn't succeed...you'll know immediately because your hand won't feel good at all. However, the ridge hand is one of the most powerful hand techniques from pretty much any angle. In the days of the PKA, many knockouts were courtesy of a ridge hand.

Your Testing Cycle runs a great flow without any long pauses between one segment to another. Why? Your Dojang has their stuff together!!

Sounds like your Testing Cycle was a great success all around. As long as the candidates demonstrated some noted improvements, then the Testing Cycle was a success. But of course, fine tuning them is the job of the CI and its instructors.