2 posts tagged “testing”
Testing today was awesome, and everyone did really well. No mishaps, no contact during non-contact sparring (not always the case, unfortunately), no major injuries. Well, not today anyway. In the previous month about six people (self included) suffered some sort of foot injury: twisted ankle, broken toes (I caught my big toe on the mat, which sort of stubbed/jammed it up pretty good). Poor Mr. F, twisted one ankle 2 weeks ago, then last night at practice tore up his pinky toe on the other foot -- he doesn't know which way to limp now, but he still soldiered on and tested for Third Dan (third degree black belt) today.
First was forms (or kata for the Japanese practitioners). The board called the third, fourth, and fifth gups all together, that's the lowest rank of red belt, and both ranks of green belt. There's only one each of the green belts, so they might have been a little self-conscious performing alone. So then we red belts find out we're going to get tested on our cumulative knowledge, and do the green belt forms with them, and suddenly what was supposed to be two forms turned into six. Unexpected, but we all did well with the pop quiz. I had suffered some insomnia earlier this week, and one of my techniques to combat it is to review all my forms, so I had that going for me.
Nothing unusual in the one-step sparring, self-defense, free sparring, or terminology sections. Breaking is always exciting, and sometimes in the past I've choked and not been able to carry through. This time though, they say the boards were good and light, and my foot went through first time on both the jump spin back kick and the round kick -- like buttah, as they say. One 1-inch pine board has about the same hardness as a human rib bone. At the next testing in November, one of our breaks will be wheel kick -- that's the one Chuck Norris uses so often in Walker when he spins around and clocks a guy on the chin. I need a lot more practice -- but not tonight.
The senior student at The Chi Institute, Scott Windom, has a fancy camera and got several good shots of probably everyone who was testing. These are three that he sent to me. These pictures are his creations, but he has said that we could share these with our fans. :)
Kenny doing one of his self-defense moves on his partner Matt. You can see the school's symbol on the back of Matt's do bok (uniform)
