a new Cat in my head

It's amazing how much one person can grow in one year. And I'm not even talking about Andrew. He amazes me, surprises me, makes me proud by getting better in little increments from week to week, but it's "normal" for him to grow, physically, mentally, spiritually. He's still young and has the world to explore... I'm talking about my own self. About 11 months ago, I received my brown belt, symbol of a 3rd kyu to the black belt in our belt system. On that December 22 night, we were told we should attend the weeknight advanced class from then on. Advanced as in "with brown belts but also black belts". Honestly, I was intimidated, like a kid facing the unknown. But seriously, what was there to be intimidated about? I had already been going to the advanced class on Saturday mornings, not because I really wanted to, but because it coincided with Andrew's hour of class, and I had survived it for a while now. My first few Mondays were indeed intimidating. New people, higher belts, even black ones, moving fluidly. Even had one class were I was partnered with one of Andrew's instructor.

Fast forward to this Fall, yesterday night in particular. Small class, only one black belt in attendance but still, eight or nine brown belts, me included. Since only two of the group knew Cat 3 from start to finish, our instructor told them to go work by themselves while we would try to learn it. Either something has clicked in me or I don't know, but the kata was sinking in so easily. We went fairly slowly, but I could repeat every move. I felt in my place in that class and again, could hear one or two say the usual "you go Steve, we'll follow you". It makes me smile. I won't go and say "okay, I'll do it and you follow" but if they want to follow while I do my own practicing, I'll be glad to let them watch.

We got to about 2/3 of the kata and I actually felt ready to learn it all in one go. Our instructor performed the end of the kata to show us where we're headed and from what I've seen, I'm pretty confident I could be able to learn it in just one more hour of class. Come to thing about it, we've been working on bits and pieces of that kata forever now. KC #11 to 16 are the main ingredients of it, with transitional moves. All these KC, I've known them for over a year now, just never knew when I'd get to use them. Quite glad the time has come...

The one drawback to us working on the kata until the last minute is that I didn't get to warm up with my bo at all and without warming up, I didn't really want to even present my kata to the group. Still, that was a very good class in which I felt I made a big step forward. Looking back one year in the past, yep, I'd say I've grown, although I know I still have a lot of room to grow...

FM