Preppin'

Last night was back to the preparatory grindstone.  As of tomorrow the class has 30 days to get ready for Celebration.  Celebration being the general term for gathering the various schools and doing testing.  In the past all the schools in the Northwest region would get together with their families and it became quite the event.  Due to the cyclical nature of martial arts school membership the event is now a very modest affair. 


Instead of a big road trip to Yakima we have the head guy come here and sign off on tests with a big social/dinner afterwards.  If I understand correctly Shihan Morris is into his 80s at this point and his sons are showing signs of their age which may preclude the celebration from occurring on the selected date.  However Sensei will continue on treating our curriculum as if we are going to have the gathering. 


Mark will be going for his Black Belt and Ivanna will be going for her 2nd degree.  And thankfully I won't have to do anything.  I was a bit concerned that I'd be partnered with Mark just to be his Uke, but I don't know the techniques smoothly enough.  I was even concerned about doing the basics with the children.  It's all very alien to me,  always stopping and thinking of the next move. 


So while Sensei focused on getting the children ready, Kyle and I worked on the Chatan Yata staff kata.  I'm now at 2/3s.  It's coming a little bit more smoothly, but my inability to practice the transitions at home are slowing me up.  My wife and I have been putting a lot of effort into redoing the interior walls so the house now resembles one of Dexter's plastic kill rooms.  Two new ceilings and tons of replastering makes for a constant cloud of dust.  Hopefully next week we'll be back to have some larger space for me to practice.  The basement dojo is just too low to have a staff swinging.