Always expect the worst

Yup, always go into something that makes you nervous thinking that it will be way,way tough. Once you're in it, it turns out not so bad usually...

Test went great, I'm now officially a second kyu in kenpo karate!

The day started with a class which I took more seriously than I told myself I would. I mean, I practiced hard and even though I'd told you I would take it easy on the cardio bit, I ended up working myself to a good sweat.

That class was a good wake up call though. We'd started reviewing our brown belt techniques, the 12 most advanced ones, kind of in order that we learned them, when a fellow more advanced brown belt who was with her kid offered to call them up for us. Not knowing we were working on advanced techniques before she got to us, she went and called a fairly basic one. All four of us practicing froze. While I was able to regain my composure when I realized I had to expect anything, my training partner had a brain freeze, a good one. For a couple more techniques, he looked at me blandly repeating "I don't remember anything, nothing is coming to me". I thought he was going to suffer a meltdown. I simply stayed calm with him and gave him simple hints to jig back his memory. He got back to it soon but was a bit freaked about the blank...

I had an hour and 15 minutes to kill between my class and that just was not enough to go back home so Andrew and I hate a sandwich as we usually do. There was no way I was going to go into that test without at least a little something in my stomach and Andrew had a bo class as per our usual schedule.

I was kinda surprised to see so many people show up as the time of the test was coming up. More and more people kept appearing, so much so that we ended up being 19 in the test. While three of them were kiddos who were testing for their blue belt or so, the rest was divided evenly in eight persons testing for 3rd kyu and eight more testing for 2nd kyu. To my knowledge, this was one of the biggest most advanced kind of test to have ever taken place at our school. Even more interesting, of the 16 more advanced candidate testing for 3rd or 2nd kyu, eight of us were adult candidates (4 for 3rd kyu, 4 for 2nd kyu). And I'm not even talking young adults, all of us over 30 (or very close to being 30) and even one fellow who's getting close to 60. Now you're talking!

Still, that left 8 kids full of energy and you know how it is, they have to burn them too, meaning burning us at the same time. I did sweat a lot, but I expected that. I'm not so sure my wife expected to see me with my face all red though. She came to pick Andrew up after his bo class, so it was about 45 minutes into our test, basically right at the end of the more cardio portion. I was indeed sweating like a pig and in between two reps, I saw her face in the hall. She looked genuinely concerned for my well being. :)

But I was fine and I survived that section first, then the one with self defense techniques, then we hit a wall with the free style self defense. The way our curriculum is build, more emphasis is put on pre-programmed (I'd even say almost choreographed) techniques up until you've received your 2nd kyu, so I knew that free style self defense (get attacked and defend yourself almost no matter how) would be a weak point. The test just confirmed it. The thing is, it pretty much confirmed it for everybody else too. If we got one good thing of that test, other than challenging ourselves to our limits, it's that our instructors acknowledged it and we should see more free style type of practice on our way to the black belt.

We finished the test with our katas. I felt mine went well. There was some sort of misunderstanding as to what was requried of us. For the last month or so, we practiced Cat 3 regularly in our classes even though we knew it was not required. What I had understood from my instructors was that if enough people had it, they would ask to see it. But then when the test came, our head instructor asked to see Sushi no kon sho, our bo kata, which we had not practiced in a little while. Not that I didn't want to practice it, but we were not really told to practice it by either of our two instructors. That was kind of odd. And frustrating, since I knew it quite well before the holiday break and with only a little practice, I would have been able to present it...

The test ended on a good, heartfelt word from our head instructor, a 5th dan lady. She told us that she was very proud of seeing such a big group of advanced belts like that. She added that while it will we will feel it as a great accomplishment to get a black belt, and we are getting ever closer she added, it will also be a great feeling for all of our instructors to see us graduate. She added that while plenty of people start as beginners every time they do an open house activity, not that many people grind it out all the way to the black belt...

Anyway, that was a good test. A test that leaves me a little sore, but not too much. Even bigger news is the fact that for the first time ever in any belt test, I did this test without a big brace on my right knee. I think I've explained in the past that I had injured my knee a couple years prior to taking on karate. I hyperextended it, leaving it a tiny bit unstable and wanting to bend sideways when I exercise and I'm really tired. Weak knee ligaments can usually be compensated for with a better control of the calf and thigh muscles, but when you get really tired, that control can tend to go out the window. That's the reason why I had always been nervous about tests. In classes, I usually wear a simple sleave. I thought about it long and hard and thought I'd try the test with only the sleave. The knee held superbly, no weakness in it at all. This was maybe my biggest win of the day. That, and that second black stripe on my brown belt. :)

FM