10 Days To Go!

"So how do you feel about things?", asked Reed Sensei.

"If you asked me a year ago that I'd even have any of this vaguely looking like I knew what I was doing, I would have said you're probably crazy.  That being said, I'm pretty darn happy that everything looks fairly good after a year of hard work.  My biggest concern being that I recover from an error without looking too bad," I replied.

Not the most auspicious conversation, but it was illustrative of where I'm at in the process.  Normally Reed will simply state, "You are doing great and could do the test no problem; I just like to see things more refined".  He no longer says that, but asks how I feel about my progress.  

Mark likes to point out that that Reed will try to refine our moves up to two days before the test.  At that point he says, "you are good to go".  That got me a chuckle, because Reed could always find something to address, but he knows at a certain point we just aren't going to be able to much more.  Frankly, I'm still fascinated that he's spotting stuff that I've actually forgotten and have had to re-add.  

I finished my on-call week on Friday, but didn't get any additional practice this weekend.  Which is a shame, but at the same time I need a break from it.  I'm definitely at the point where the repetition is becoming onerous.  I'll be glad to be doing something a bit different. 

So I returned to the regular class last night and it was back to the schedule.  However after warmup was complete Mark and I were directed to run through the test.  I welcome the practice.  Since Mark hasn't been able to practice for nearly a week his rust was showing.  After three runs we looked pretty good.  However, I notice if we do it around six times he starts mixing up portions of the kata.  If I make a mistake we fall apart as well.  

After class we ran through the class with only a few corrections in the kata portion.  Almost no corrections in the bunkai and then it was on to the applications.  We had a few hiccups, but the second time we looked pretty good!  

Now to make hotel reservations!