On Saturday, I tested for a rank called ikkyu in Japanese. We generally call it first kyu (kyu=grade or rank) but it'll make sense to most people as the rank right before black belt. We don't do colored belts, before you ask, so I have worn a white belt for the last 5.5 years. :P Because our aikido school is very young, I'm one of the original beginners and I am the first of Stephan's students to test for first kyu.
It was pretty stressful preparing for this test. It's been over 2 years since my last rank test because Aikido schools have a rigid set of requirements for testing. I had to have a minimum of 150 training days and the test itself is laid out by the international association we belong to so I had to make sure I knew everything on the list without hesitation (the without hesitation part is where I had some trouble). This will also be the last rank test that Stephan can administer. For my black belt test, I'll either have to fly to California or we'll have to fly someone here. Crazy, huh? Anyway, a test begins with a bow-in. First, the entire class bows in and then the tester and the first uke, or person who'll be attacking and being thrown, do a formal bow-in.
The first part of the test is a technical demonstration. The teacher calls out an attack and a throw. So my partner (or uke) has to do that particular attack and I have to do that particular throw. It can be stressful to be a test uke.
Every technique ends in either a throw
Or a pin.
I also have to show that I can do the techniques from a kneeling position. I call this Japanese bar fighting. :D Also, I'm leaning too far forward in this photo.
The second part of the test is less stuffy than the first part. Each of my partners are allowed to do any attack and I can do any technique against it. Stephan decided to spice things up and pulled a knife on me. For the most part, despite being surprised, I still managed relatively textbook techniques.
Except for once but it still ended up okay. Will, one of my kali instructors, will be pleased to know that when one attempt went terribly wrong, I was able to revert to some of our "Die Less Often" Dog Brothers material. It was awesome! I didn't get "stabbed" and I managed to still disarm the knife. I'm so pleased that I don't care if it was ugly.
By this point, I thought I was going to throw up, lol, because this section goes fast and you cycle through every person who is there. Sometimes twice. But the end of free flowing section is multiple person randori (kind of like aikido's version of sparring). I like this photo because I've just redirected Dave and I'm watching for Stephan who is right behind him.
After it's all over, we repeat all the formal bowing, cheer, and then take a group picture.
Those are some tall dudes, huh?
It's a little anti-climactic to get to the end of a test for me. It feels like I spend so much time preparing and anticipating and being nervous that at the end, I'm a touch empty. The timing of this test was good, though. We're hoping to move into the new house in the next two weeks so I'm swamped with little things. And one big thing: packing. It just dawned on me that we're moving. Which means I have a house to pack. T_T
We're all busy! Even Miss Autumn:
Anyway, thank you to all the ukes for my test and thank you to the ones who didn't make it Saturday but let me throw them over and over and over again trying to perfect those koshinages. Thank you to Mike for supporting me and getting up early on Saturday mornings with Autumn while I go to class and to my mom for spending her day off watching Autumn while I learn how to crank arms. And especially thank you to Stephan who is an awesome teacher, mentor, and honorary dad.
3 comments:
:) WTG!
That's all way over my head, and I don't even know how to pronounce some of those words, but I do know one thing... it's way cool to see a (small) girl beat up on all those big guys.
Aw, lauren, it took me forever to write this post so it made sense to non-martial artists. :D But I did figure that if the rest was gibberish, the photos would be entertaining. Haha!! Just wait until I get some video going!
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