Greater Expectations

Great news, all five students who tested Saturday passed, with myself attaining the exalted rank of 6th kyu (note the sarcasm please). I felt it was a good test and I was pretty confident through the whole thing.

The feedback I got from the Sensei after the test was good as well. R Sensei pointed out that I'm not keeping my knees flexible throughout the techniques and I allow my center to come up as I move forward. This is something I've been working on in my kihon dosa, but I need to be conscious of this as I do my techniques as well. I basically need to remember to move through my knees as I move forward.

After completing this last test, I feel like I'm approaching the intermediate level of training. For example, the curriculum for the next test includes hiyaku ukemi (flying forward flips), as well as kotegaeshi. Up until now, doing hiyaku ukemi has been a novelty, preparing for the time when I'll be expected to be able to perform them well. However, now that time has arrived. I am at the level where I'm expected to be able to flip. I suppose it's good I've already been exposed to flipping, but I'm far from confident. I did a few after class this morning and I felt pretty comfortable doing them, however I did scrape my head along the mat on one of the flips, which is a big no-no. If you do that when someone's really throwing you, you're setting yourself up for a serious injury.

The next event to look forward to is our dojo's annual embu (演武, or martial arts exhibition) in April. We worked on a weapons enbu during the last gashuku, but there's still a lot of work to be done to prepare. But it should be a lot of fun showing people why I get up so damn early every morning.

Osu!