October 2008 Kyu Promotion at Honbu

It's the day after kyu promotion at Honbu and I'm feeling pretty good minus the stiff neck from the fender bender that Max and I were involved in last night while on the way home (nothing serious, we're fine, I just got a bit of whip lash but luckily we were wearing seat belts and the driver wasn't going too fast).

Yesterday's promotions kicked off with the white belt promotion at 11:30 and at 12:30, blue through advanced yellow--the group I was part of--began their promotion. Firstly, I couldn't help but notice the size of this group compared to prior promotions. There had to be 45-50 of us at least and we were packed along the sides of the first floor of the Honbu dojo like sardines when I came in around noon. The Saturday kata class instructed by Nidaime was going on so there wasn't much room for stretching until we were called upstairs. Yet, we were quite the ball of energy--blue belts, advanced blue belts, yellow belts, advanced yellow belts--attempting to stretch, doing short, modified versions of our katas, and speaking in nervous and excited voices of what was to come in just 15 minutes. I myself was off to the side stretching my legs when Nidaime authoritatively cut short the discussion of the boisterous group. The group, now very quite and some a bit surprised because they had no idea that they had had gotten so loud was called upstairs a few short minutes later. Upon going upstairs to the second floor of the Honbu dojo, we began the written portion of the test. For me, the written test for yellow belt was fair enough--I was lucky to recently start visualizing all of my material mentally from start to finish with all of tournament practice as this test was in my opinion more descriptive. But enough about the test, those of you who have yet to take the yellow belt test will just have to find out when the time comes ;) and those of you who have taken it however long ago may be able to see where I'm coming from in my assessment :)

Next was the hour long physical portion of the test (The promotion is roughly 2 hours). For me, I found this promotion for me to be challenging enough and I really pushed myself in this one--as I try to push harder with each one. There is sometimes this tendency when engaging in any periodic event to relax too much after enduring a couple of them and develop a fatigue about the activity but I can honestly say that I was very focused and stayed on my toes regardless and many of us testing that day can definitely say the same. Because once you allow yourself to develop a nonchalant fatigue about your training and promoting, it will affect your motivation, your physical skill/progress and mental growth from the activity. As a person I respect very much once said with many things in this world, "If you pay for it, you'll get it"--so really, it's up to you to make the most of it, give your best and give it some type of meaning. Some martial arts schools (whether it's karate, mma or tae kwon do) have fell into the pitfall of becoming highly commercialized and consumed with keeping students at all costs and generating a high profit even if it means compromising the integrity of the style or way. Now, I won't bury my head in the sand when it comes to Economics 101 as I went to b-school but there is a point where people must understand that this is karate, that it is something that is beautiful and strong and has been around for hundreds of years and that they owe it to the style itself (and ultimately to themselves) to learn and do their very best and grow from it. And I feel that Kaicho, other senior instructors and Seido karate in general is reinforcing this principle.

After the physical test for promotion ended, we all gathered around Kaicho, Jun Shihan Walter, and other very senior members of Seido and had a brief but intimate group discussion that was very much a mirror of the spirit at Seido Honbu and Seido dojos everywhere. Before I knew it, it was all over! A flurry of yellow and blue belts heading downstairs while the physical portion of the green through brown belt promotion started (Max tested today for brown belt :))

Well, promotion results go up Friday, October 31st for all kyu belts so I will know the official results of my test to promote to advanced yellow belt. It was an eventful day and it was over way too soon. Stayed tuned for future entries that include pieces on the dynamic Seido YAI program and notes from Seido instructors and Seido students all over the world this coming November!

Osu Everyone,
Danielle