Weapons In The Park

 Sensei hit that point in training where he wanted to try something different.  I totally appreciate when we hit this point.  Usually an indication that we've hit a plateau and need to shake it up.

As a group we don't focus on weapons a great deal.  I'm always interested because I have such a minimal exposure.  I have three bo (staff) kata, but have largely forgotten them.  

Yesterday we studied a short kata from the Yammani-Ryu school, Donyu Kun Ichi (Introduction Staff One).  Reed went into a lot of description about why we were doing what we were doing, but we completed it by the end of the time.  Apparently it continues to gain complexity in the second form, but uses the same pattern.

Here is a nice example of what we learned.

We are a bit more vigorous.

In other news - It's been slightly over a year since I took my Nidan exam.  I've got two years to go before my exam.  I'm really hoping that the pandemic is managed by then.  My classmate Mary-Ann is going for her Yondan which sounds stressful.  All wrapped up at the school and possibly get Covid or do it at home via video conference where things are so separate.  

Karate In the Time Of Apocolypse

 I haven't written much because there hasn't been much going on.  The Pacific Northwest has been inundated with biblical plagues during the last month, so even leaving the house was becoming hazardous due to air quality.  While waiting for the air to clear we had to keep an eye on the fires that were creating them.  My wife and I packed to leave twice when evac levels started ramping up.  Absolutely stressful.  I now have a small insight into what folks in California run into year to year.

During this time I've been diligently practicing my six katas, but have a tendency to moan about progress or lack there of.  When you can't leave your house all of sudden the time that you never had you get back in spades.  So practice became a regular thing.  Too bad we could get together as a class.

Just as covid set in I began a serious regime of weight lifting.  I once aspired to be a body builder in my younger years and took up the weights again in a attempt to stave off the muscle wasting that seems to come with age.  Unfortunately, returning to the process also landed me with several injuries.  A hamstring, a shoulder and finally my neck.  When the neck thing started appearing I finally ended weights, but it took about four weeks of PT to get to the point where I can be mobile without pain.  It would appear that I have a slightly damaged C6 or C7.  When it bulges it pinches a nerve that goes down my left shoulder and arm.  The pain it created almost made me psychotic.  I now have insight into people with chronic pain conditions.  I wouldn't want to wish that on anyone.  It's horrible.

So the PT worked it's charm and I do all sorts of weird exercises to alleviate the pinch in my neck and I can do a lot again.  I haven't picked up the weights just yet due to fear, but I was able to go back to karate!  

And now that the air is clear (the air quality hit 500 at one point - toxic) karate in the park was back on, but socially distanced as before.  The concern I carry now it about warming up and minding my body carefully so I don't re-injure or slow down current healing.  

I got there a bit early and starting warming up, but I strangely never feel like I'm ready to go.  Our warms up always let me know that one part is not ready to go at all.  In this case my left ham appeared locked. I couldn't even sit with spread legs.  Super frustrating.  

We got going and I ended up working with Olivia on Shishochin.  She hasn't had time to practice so we went over a multitude of times.   Then we were corrected by Sensei on a host of little things.  After a ton of refinement we moved on to a new kata - Seiyunchin!

I got the three first moves down and we ran out of time.  Super cool though, since this means that we are on seventh of twelve kata!  

After I got home, my neck told me that it was worked so it was back to exercises to loosen it up and try to relax.  It appears to be fine this morning - whoop!

Karate In The Time Of Covid

 I gotta watch that big toe

I gotta watch my neck, don't punch to hard

Watch for overloading that left knee.

Don't kick so hard on the left or you'll hurt that bad hammie.  

Try to get time with Sensei to answer some questions about that one piece in the kata.

Keep your eyes up during the kata.

Man, my mind is busy.  The above was floating around in my skull before and during our most recent session in the park.  I'm trying to address the work at hand, but my recent spate of physical issues tends to press in inopportunely.  

I tweaked my left knee recently going up and down a ladder.  It stiffens easily.  I've had this before so just babying, regular movement should clear it up in a week.  

My bulging C6/7 is finally resolving.  Regular exercises have pulled the bulge back to the point where the nerves are barely pinching.  However, punching at full strength certainly aggravates things, but I was totally fine to go to sleep comfortably last night.  

My PT has given me new exercises to help with work on my hamstring.  Because the injury appeared to be so high up (on the hip bone) I probably wasn't doing too much with traditional stretches.  The new stuff really is nice and I see progress, but this morning sitting is tough, which means I probably overdid it last night.  

I'm up to six kata (of the twelve I need to learn for my test) and although they are short I find myself forgetting pieces and parts.  They aren't totally engrained yet.  So I imagine it's going to be a bit before I get to number seven.  

The current list:

1. Gekki Sai Dai Ichi
2. Gekki Sai Dai Ni
3. San Shin
4. Tensho
5. Saifa
6. Shiso Shin

Please forgive spelling errors.  

 

Bassai in the park

Holy Cow!  So much time has passed since I've sat down and collected my thoughts for a quick update about my martial practice.  March was my last entry!  Here we are in July and I've a bit of a restart about a month ago.

Sensei has the blackbelts meeting in a nearby park twice a week.  We all wear masks and stay six feet apart.  The heat has become unfortunate, but the shaded areas are reasonable.  I feel like there is a certain amount of irony about all the folks complaining that they can't breath with a simple surgical mask.  I think they should be doing an action packed kata with one on. 

I'm often breathing so hard that I'm pulling the mask into my mouth a good bit.  Apparently I'm back out of shape.  Doing kata for an hour has become grueling.  I'm not sure the heat or generally my household internment is the greater cause, but I can assume both have weight in the problem. 

During the covid lock down I've returned to weightlifting, but I've been accumulating injuries consistently.  Hamstring, two shoulders and a forearm have been the stuff I've been overcoming.  So the return to karate has been really nice.  I see it as a reasonable exercise, but as we gear up at the park I struggle to keep up with my various injuries peeking through. 

Since we can get near each other the only thing we are doing is working on kata.  I'm not slated to learn much more than what I know (towards my third dan) so I'm helping out Kyle work on his Nidan.  It's a treat to help, but as per usual, I'm not confident with my teaching skills.  What to focus on?  What to correct? And so on. 

Sensei took yesterday to get us all to learn Bassai Dai.  I was very pleased because this was a kata I did for my Blackbelt in Tang So Do.  However the versions are different, and I doubt I could remember it anyway.  Once we got rolling I was able to recall the moves in some spots.  Below I've got an example of the karate and the TSD so you can see the differences.

Karate with commentary! 

And 

TSD with some notes.  Master Kil

As you can see the patterns are fairly compatible, but TSD really doesn't look at the stances too much and adds a lot of spring to the whole thing.  Sigh, the good old days.  The stances in the Japanese version are challenging to me.  

Full Iron Circle

When I started at the Shudokan school five years ago, MaryAnn Sensei was working on her San Dan and as part of that she would teach me the katas she was working on.  Here I am five years later doing the same thing!

As part of good learning we are told to teach to really absorb what's going on in a kata.  The four kata I have are relatively simple and short in length, but teaching represents a challenge because I tend to parrot what I've been told, but I don't know a lot of the "why's" and "what fors".  

Since my usual partner, Olivia, has been out to family issues Mark has been nice enough to work out with me.  As part of that I've been teaching him the four Goju-Ryu kata I know.  So that completes the circle for to a degree.  We touched on them Monday and as of yesterday he had all four down by the end of the second class.  He still struggles with pattern, but considering it was about five hours, he did a great job for someone who lists his own memory as being really short.

I'm feeling better and better with them and I think I might jump ahead and take alook at the next one to see how complicated it is.  Whoop!

Covid Dachi

The slow and insidious creep of Covid 19 in our region is impacting lots of things, but in respect to karate all the regional tournaments have been canceled.  That means that our focus for the last several months just ground to a halt. 

Reed uses a text string with all the black belts to give us news or ask questions.  As of this week this has turned into how do we deal with this issue of transmissible disease.   No one wants to miss class, but no one wants to wrangle with a case of the flu.  As a result we are now focusing on kata and pretty much zero contact.  

Thankfully we have a nurse in class and she gave us the info we more or less need - wash your hands a lot and don't worry so much if you're healthy.  The social distancing is probably good for the population in general, but the concern is over blown for healthy people.  If your old, if you have respiratory issues or immuno-suppressed then you might need to hide out for some time.  

This has allowed for us to focus on kata for a big stretch.  Since our new bb club is so close to the class we don't lose 20 to 30 minutes of driving.  So we are getting two plus hours of practice and instruction.  

For me it was back to Goju-Ryu basics and fine tuning my first three kata (Geki Sai Dai Ichi, Ni and Sanshin).  During the regular class it was all foot work, meaning that I had to do sanshin dachi for a half hour before he had me work with Cooper on his stuff.  My legs are pretty tired today.  

I definitely have to practice more though.  I'd forgotten a few items as per usual.  Sigh.

Bugs and changes

With the corona virus being in our backyard everything appears to be a bit impacted.  Work has required every one to work at home and cancelled all but necessary travel.  I hadn't really thought about anything beyond that, but last night Sensei mentioned that he's not going to the upcoming tournaments out of an abundance of concern.  Especially the ones where there are travelers from Southeast Asia going through multiple airports.  Yikes!

This means that the next tournament I had planned on might be in jeopardy.  Reed said we'll continue to work toward the tournaments as if we were going.  I guess it gives us a focus.  

We tried out a new place for the black belt group.  Mark has houses all over the area and has a basement near the club where we have our regular classes.  It's massive.  I think like 3000 square feet.  It's broken up into a lot of rooms, but it worked out for us.  Reed split us into skill groups so no one was stepping on anyone's toes.  The ceilings are a bit low with texture, so hands and knuckles beware.  This could be a new potential home base for us and certainly reduces all the driving we normally do.

The evening class was mostly occupied with working on a kata we all knew and tearing it down in various ways.  And then Mark and I tried to teach Cooper the second Kyoku kata.  I was enthusiastic, but with two teachers and one student I think we could have been better.  He's a good student so it went well even though we had poor instruction.  

Still In Prep Mode

I'm not sure how it is that I don't remember this time of the year from years past.  Clearly Reed and the others that normally go to tournaments during this quarter tend to focus on the little preparatory things, but I don't remember this level of involvement before.

Monday we focused on our katas that we'd be doing for tournament.  By that I mean it was working on details until we were blue in the face.  Which is nice to be honest because at home practice is usually once or twice run through with no one but myself.  It makes it hard to be objective.

Last night was back to fight night.  After a lot of interesting drills, which broke up our previous moves into different patterns we started matches way to late.  The style of tournament we are practicing now is more international.  There is a three point system which really emphasizes kicks to the head for three points.  The matches are 12 points and three minutes long.  They feel like forever.  To prepare for this style we added a huge amount of kicks to our repertoire.  I normally love kicks, but I'd forgotten how exhausting they are.  That's a lot muscle to energize over and over again, but against a shorter opponent I do way better than I thought, if I can regularly take shots with my legs.

Only one match and it was against Todd who always wins, but I got him 12 to 5 due to kicks.  Whoop.  

I immediately went home and gobbled ibuprofen to get ahead of the worst of the pain.  I guess this what we do in our 50s.  Ugh.  More stretching for sure.

Post Tournament Review

There is so much to talk about, but I'm not sure how much I can put into a cohesive story.  Of course, I'm not sure how much I write is cohesive, hah!

I decided fairly late into the process to go to tournament with my Sensei and Todd.  Normally I would have planned ahead by a couple more weeks and Sensei would have better numbers for the organizers.  Then we would have probably planned our weekend better, but such is life.  

We ended up leaving at 5 am, driving three and half hours and walking into registration at the last minute.  We were still dressing up when the first staging was occurring.  Thankfully there was around two hundred competitors so the little kids took up most of the first hour.  

The tourney was in a high school gym and the floor space was broken into 6 "rings".  The entire time I was there, except for the final grand champion fights, every ring was in use.  Totally a 6 ring circus and incredibly well organized.  

I registered for four events.   Black belt kata (men's open), Black Belt kata (men over 45), Kumite black belt men open and Kumite black belt men over 35 heavy weight.  

For my first kata I got an 8.5 which didn't place me due to the amount of competitors.  My second kata, which I thought was great was an average of 8.4 I think.  Still not good enough to place.  

We had to wait around a bit for Kumite so Reed and I thought we'd warm up during which he punched me in the mouth while we were moving fast.  No damage, but I thought I was going to go into competition with Kim Kardashian lips for a minute, hah!

Our open group of men turned out to be the friendliest folks.  We got chatting and laughing, but when it was fight time everyone was very serious.  I liked that vibe quite a bit.  It relaxed the atmosphere.  Todd told me later that the low color belts had a lot of testosterone.  We didn't seem to have it in our crowd.  

I honestly felt that I wouldn't be competitive due to the lack of experience in the last fifteen years, but to my surprise I won my first two matches.  I lost the third and figured it was no big deal.  I had my equipment off and got surprised when they called me again.  The single elimination thing really threw me off.  So I got another match in and lost that one and was finally out.  However out of a group of 12 guys I ended up fourth!  What the heck!?  

Micheal and Me.  Not elegant.

Mr. Rice and Me.  This is the one that ended my reign.

The next kumite was black belt men over 35 and and heavy weight.  We all asked what the weight cut off was and they said it was our preference.  What?  Finally an old timer said that the cut off was 175 lb.  Well we definitely all met and exceeded that.  

My first and only match was with Eric, the guy that ended up as grand champion.  It wasn't much of a contest.  I did a 0-3.  I felt that I got one point, but the judge was a AAUW guy and sorting out the action was so weird.  He never stopped us and both Eric and I got confused because we would reset and he would say "I didn't say yame."  So we'd launch as fast we could and the first person would get the point.  Sigh.

Eric and me.

My Sensei, Reed ended up in the grand champion round so we stayed pretty late.  We stopped for dinner on the way back and I ended up getting home at 9.  A long day.  

Long Reach

I know that I'm taller than most folks, but I never considered myself "tall".  So the emphasis for sparring this week was all about reach.  It turns out that I've got a big advantage in my class group anyway.  For the first time in sparring I'm getting decent points!  I'm not necessarily winning all the time, but way more than ever before.  

This revelation coincides with my decision to go to tournament this weekend.  Sensei and Todd decided to go, and I didn't really have a reason not to other than it's a very long day.  We need to drive three hours to get there and have a long day and then drive three hours back. Urgh.

The unfortunately side-effect to all this activity in sparring is that I'm fairly mangled this morning.  Learning to throw a punch from far away has made my right shoulder tender.  Warmup drills caught my small toes on my good foot making them uncomfortably sprained.  A side kick at Todd smashed my good foot into his knee, bruising and bursting the top of the foot.  My pinky must have caught a gi or something as it's swelled up this morning.  I'm going to be getting some ibuprofen in me soonest.

Toe news - I finally went back to the podiatrist about my bad big toe.  The joint is filling in which explains the lack of mobility and pain.  I'm supposed to work on it until such point that the pain is intolerable or constant and then it's time for a fusion.  It's not what I expected though.  A lattice across the top and a screw through the side.  The good part about this, other than the recovery period, is that I would gain 40% mobility and an absence of pain!  Winner.   So I guess it's something to look forward to?

My prep for tournament is buying a few things.  I needed to buy a new jock protector and new gloves.  The new protector is so nice in comparison to years past.  It comes in nice compression shorts and has a little pocket to hold the protector.  Super nice.  

Fight Night Fight Prep

It appears that Sensei is keeping to the plan where we use the entirety of Wednesdays to prep for sparring.  

The first forty minutes are warming up and then a specific lesson.  This time it was defense of counter punch.  Basically blocking with front or back hand and then reposting.  Very energic.  As usual, I thought I was going to be out of shape, but the excitement kept me going throughout.

I got two matches in.  My first was with a new yellow belt who beat me three to two and one against Daniel who beat me three to one.  Not my best work, but this was nice because we used coaches.  So we stop after a point and the coach would tell you that what you were doing wrong.  I wasn't fully committing kicks or punches!  So that was a big help.  I also tried using some strategy by moving to the weak side of my oppenent, but that went poorly as he knew what I was doing.  Sigh.  Even though there was two more losses under my belt it was nice to hear what I needed to improve on.  Next week!

A nice acknowledgement from Sensei.  He pointed out that point sparring is vastly different from self-defense and shouldn't be considered in the same boat, but still great to do.  Bunkai and application are the focus for self-defense.  Intriguing.  I wished that we had the standard matches where we could try to use any of our moves.  Maybe if we had more days to practice.

As a result my bad big toe is acting up pretty badly, so much so, that I've made an appointment with my foot doctor.  Time to get it sorted.

Tourney Bound?

Hey All.  I went back at it last night.  "It" meaning I went for the two hours since my cold has passed and my regular level of fitness has returned.  That level isn't great, but since I wasn't getting thrown or swept I didn't wear myself out getting up over and over again.

First Hour
The work of the moment in class is tournament prep.  March has four tourneys so refinement on kata and sparring practice is the focus in class.  I haven't been to a tourney in years so I'm hoping to get at least one.  So we spent some time on figuring out what kata's I should choose.  I need two.  I ended up picking Wando and Ni Pai Po.  There both part of my last test.  I could remember the pattern, but a lot of the fine detail was left to be desired.  

Second Hour
The class was mostly devoted to refining the two kata.  I ended up working with Olivia most of the evening and had to eat a lot of crow when we worked together.  Comparing against Olivia and Daniel is brutal.  They are way beyond where I'm at.  

Notes
I'm feeling an extreme amount of soreness as a result of trying hard for two hours.  My general fitness is still coming back slowly.  I'll now ruin that by going on vacation Mexico for a week.  At least I'll walk quite a bit in the evenings.  

New Year, Into The Deep End

Hey Tater Tots!

It was time to pull off the proverbial bandage and jump into the deep end of the pool.  Although I was feeling pretty out of shape I decided to go to both hours of class on Wednesday night.  The temperature was cold in Reed's garage so movement was the only way to keep warm.  

First hour
Reed assigned Mia to me.  I was to go over the first two katas Kyoku sho and ni dan, their bunkai and then Oyo.  Thankfully they are very active and I got warm quick.  Half of it was probably due to me being out of shape so mild exertion was fairly stressful.  We did that for the whole hour.  

Second hour
Wednesday is traditionally the time we have sparring practice, but it's the first thing to go by the wayside if someone is prepping for exams.  Since we had a moment to breath in schedule, as it were, it was time to get back to sparring prep.  

Before we started Reed pulled Olivia and me aside to review our four Goju-Ryu kata.  We practiced that for about 15-20 minutes.  Then it was sparring drills for another 20 minutes.  Then it was only to the good stuff.

Sparring
Unfortunately I got the short end of the straw so I only got one fight and it was with Mark.  He, as a rule, is not very aggressive in a match, but for whatever reason he was extremely cagey.  I didn't have any openings to try something interesting (wheel kick) and had to fall back on rushing in.  The final score was 3-1 and I got two cautions for contact.  Not my best work.  

Note
I'm missing a conference when I go on vacation next week.  Which is a bummer.  I've never been able to make one.  Competition season is now warming up and sometime in March is the first one.  I wonder if I can make one for once.

2019 Wrap Up And Review

What a year.  I got my Ni Dan in September, had my 53rd birthday in October, which weirdly signaled my realization of my age, and over the course of the year I lost twenty pounds and have kept it off due to diet.  

In the end of the year, when I should be learning a bunch of Goju-Ryu stuff, I ended up getting waylaid by life.  

At work we started a massive project that meant 10 to 12 hour days, my wife and me started putting a bathroom in the basement (where I'm doing 99% of the work) and as the year started winding up my Mother started going down hill.

As I've mentioned my Mother in past posts, the horror of dementia finally came to a head last month when my Mom got a cold, but previous to that she started experiencing difficulty swallowing.  At a certain point she no longer took water and was able to wave off assistance.  She'd put into her medical requests to take no further assistance so she went down hill in about two days.  My wife was able to get there and hold her hand as she passed away and I was able to get there two days later.  The sense of normal sadness was replaced with relief for her and us.

On the flight home I was surrounded by sick people sneezing and guess what  - I got sick for the last week.  I haven't had that much difficulty throwing off a cold in ages.  So I missed another week of karate as a result.

Last night I finally went back with some sense of concern that I might not be ready to do the whole two hours.  I spent the first hour teaching Kyle Ni Pi Po so I wasn't worn out, but decided to go home early and hit the hay early.  

On a side note I got Sensei a karate clock for his garage.  It was nice to be back and get the laughs and get moving.   

Mop The Floor

Illness and seasonal obligations are making the class fairly slim which can be a nice thing.  It's similar to a private lesson in that the attention is comprehensive and specific.  However it can be grueling.  The intensity is much more so you must come to class focused.  

There was only four of us for both club and class.  During the club I spent most of my time working on my Nidan Kata with our fourteen year old black belt.  She recently passed her exam and tends to get placed with me to help me with my "elementary" kata.  She's incredibly detailed in her reviews.  I feel like I have to nurse my ego at times though.  I'm like four times her age and have been practicing Martial arts for an accumulative time of two decades at the very least.  And then she points out all the stuff I need to correct, which by the way, are all accurate.  I shrivel a bit on the inside.  Shouldn't I better?

In regular class we mostly worked on bunkai after a protracted warm up my MaryAnn.  I'm finding that I'm very inflexible in my back/torso.  When did that happen?  Freakin' Fifties.  You never know what part is freezing up until it sneaks up on you.

Reed is absolutely amazing in that he takes from each of our kata and rotates us through all kinds of techniques.  I was Todd's for his white belt stuff and then he'd be my Uke for the complicated Goju stuff I was doing and back and forth it went.  I can pick stuff fairly easily, but asking Reed for assistance to suss out some tidbit can be painful.  He'll need to do the technique a few times to figure out the question and that means I'm going get my face ground into the floor fairly hard.  I never tap soon enough with him.  

Although I wasn't in any particular pain when I got home I took some Ibuprofen as a prophylactic.  I ended up sleeping nine hours!  I guess it took more out me than I thought!

So Four Monks Walk Into A Bar...

New Kata alert!

Reed told us about a week ago that he wanted to jump ahead a bit in our katas to learn Shisochin.  I gather Goju-Ryu isn't really big on assigning meaning to their kata, but our teacher's teacher was somewhat religious and would connect something to everything.  In this case the kata was about honoring the dead.  And for whatever reason this time of year seems to be a good time to remember folks.  

So while we were learning it last night I asked what the words actually meant.  We know Shi means four, but that was about it.  So while we practiced Reed dug through  
his books and figured out that it meant four monks.  That's about it.  Sigh.  Not much of a story connected because that's the way of their school.

In regular class we practiced and went through the whole thing.  However today I was having problems remembering it, but thankfully I have videos from Chinen to help me remember.  Last night after class and this morning I apparently forgot a section.  Sigh.

Back to practice between teleconferences.  

Watch this guy rip through it.  

Three Shots To The Chin

I remember once reading that if you're in a street fight remember to clench your jaw.  I think the rationale was that it's supposed to suppress a knock punch or broken teeth.  

With this in mind I tried to clench my teeth when I was working with Cooper.  We were doing bunkai for one of his katas which after a small exchange end up with a back fist to my jaw and then two follow up punches to the same spot.  

The first time we did it with contact I got that famous jangle letting me know that I definitely didn't have my jaw tight or that possibly it didn't matter.  Ouch.  

---

At black belt class I thought we were going to learn a new Goju-Ryu kata, but for whatever reasons I got pointed back to learning the second of our Kyoku katas.  I'm learning those to get ready to be a testing partner for Cooper when he goes for his Black belt exam.  I've got three more to go.  The tough part is that each one has more and more bunkai connected to it.  Trying to remember that is difficult. I gather the fifth one has 8 bunkai!

The Nidan isn't much harder than the first pattern wise, but what I did find challenging is that there is a lot of stuff going on.  There's even a new stance, kiden dachi.  It looks like a painful ballet move for me.  Ouch.

That and shoveling tons of mulch had me sleep a nice sleep!  And now to practice.

GoJu Basics

I do go on about the basics, but learning a whole new style certainly has a way of dictating what you need to focus on.

My work life and social obligations have been complex enough that I've only been able to get to class once a week.  I'm always in fear that I'm missing and falling behind, but Reed pointed out that we are way ahead of the schedule because we on a three year program.  Being three kata in means that we are "ahead".  

This means that we work on the basics.  That means it's doing muashauke's and sanchin dachi's until we're blue in the face.  So that's what we'll do and then on the side I keep learning the Shodan kata for a upcoming brownbelt so I can be his partner.  So life feels pretty full.

Of note - part of sanchin is that you a proper stance so that you are strong in certain ways.  To check this another person hits you in certain ways to confirm that.  One of these is a kick to the groin.  Although your knees aren't touching you should be able block enough to stop the shin to get to the groin.

While we were practicing we tried to do the "tests" while we were in our best stances.  One of those tests is that kick.  However the kick is done with the shin, not the foot.  As the shin comes up between the legs the lead knee jams it up and the other thigh traps it.  

Unfortunately Olivia used her foot and went up without friction into my crotch.  Ouch.  Thankfully she didn't put any gas into the kick.  Lesson learned.

---

Side news!  My old buddy Bob Patterson is alive and possibly kicking.  He actually moved to my part of the US.  Who knows - we might get to meet in real life!

Three Plus Kata

Although it was like learning a new kata, Olivia and I learned the variant of Sanchin that has a turn around, but the amount of strikes is the same.  The addition of the turn came with a brutal new leg muscle development scheme.  

Each movement in Goju-ryu is usually accompanied with a slight dip.  I assume this is to force good foot placement and make you stable, but the turns we are required to dip all the way down (as far we can go) to develop our leg muscles.  At the test we are supposed to be back to normal.  Ah tradition.  My legs felt like rubber.  

While we worked on basics in the two hours of class we were introduced to some of the sections in our upcoming kata.  Yikes!  Complicated handwork coming up.

Here I am in all my glory! Cover your eyes.

Cita 111819

Just a quick note about Monday.  I won't be able to go to class tonight, but wanted to note my brain's mood at the time.

I was completely exhausted after a pretty busy weekend and I just haven't got a lot of sleep.  So I look forward to being exhausted from class so I can sleep well on Monday night.  Unfortunately,  I had to work a very long day and ended up only going to the last hour of class.  Not really enough time to get warn out, but nice to get warmed up. 

We worked on basic foot work in Sanshin and went through a couple of katas then I was forwarded over to our new/old student Marsha who was working on Rohai Shodan.  I got to work on refining at kata she did eight years ago.  She was pretty darn good and only needed a bit of my advice.  Awesome. 

Then I worked with Cooper for a bit as his punching dummy.  He's a green belt that Reed wants me to be his test partner for his blackbelt.  That's a bit down the line for him and I have yet to learn all the kata he'll need to know. 

No class tonight for me since I have to go to a memorial.  Sigh.

Two Ways To Skin A Kata

I felt like I just got to the point where I had met the absolute max of what I could take in.  It felt like zero to 100% in one instance though.  

I got to the black belt class early and so did Mia.  So I asked her a few questions about the first in house only kata we have, Kyoku Shodan.  After that she asked if I wanted to learn the second one.  "Sure," I said, thinking that it was going to be as easy as the first one, but to my chagrin the pattern was confounded with additional hand techniques so it immediately turned into a blur.  Later in the regular class we went over the 10 kihons (beginners kata) which added to the mess in my brain.  

When everyone else showed up to the BB class Olivia and were taught the first iteration of Sanchin, the primary kata for Goju Ryu.  This is the one where you'll usually see the guy with the top of his gi off while someone hits him to make sure that their stances are correct.  And here I was doing it and grinning like and idiot while I was it!

Not me pictured

The guy in the video is doing variant B of the kata.  Olivia and I were informed that the Goju schools don't really care what version you're doing, but you better have damn good basics when you buddy starts doing the smackins.  

The problem with this kata being so slow is that keeping place for me becomes a challenge. It's not actually a long kata, any stretch of the imagination.  Three steps forward, five punches at that point, four press downs and two muashiukes going back.  Boom you're done.  However due to the deep breathing and pace I can remember if I'm on the third or fifth move.  Sigh.  And on top of this, tomorrow we learn variant two which has the turn in it.  It's the one I learned four plus years ago.  Good luck brain!   

Rear Hand Blocks First

Well, I thought I was doing pretty good with this first couple of kata from the Goju school and was anxious to move on to Sanchin or the second Kyochu.  Reed shot me down on that and after some review I had a lot to do to refine what I had.  But don't I always! 

Although I've done some Goju in the past, actually putting it into use is tough for me.  One of the biggest pieces is that they block with the back hand and then pass that grab or blocked hand to the lead hand.  It's hard to describe, but if I can put together a video to demo it you'll see what I'm referring to.

After practicing at some length and making errors left and right, Olivia pointed out that we are essentially white belts in a new style.  Ergh, didn't think of that, but so true.

Thankfully everything seems pretty straightforward now, but we'll see. 

A Little GoJu, A Little Shudo

Just a quick progress report today.  

• Gekisai Dai Ichi and Ni are down pretty good
• Bunkai is better, but still needs to be smoother
• Learned Kyoku Shodan
• Bunkai is two separate items
• Oyo is back and forth with the two Bunkai

Pretty easy so far, but I've got Sanshin coming up which I did four or so years ago, but my recollection is a bit fuzzy.  The video below gives you an idea, but we have a slight variation because we are Shudokan doing another school's kata.  Weee.

So much breathing!

Pulled Muscles That I Don't Know The Name Of

As a follow up from Monday I'm still plagued with the issue that I'm fairly out of shape.  In my defense we don't often do a lot of basics due to test prep, but that's changed and it was a shock to the system.  

At blackbelt class (before the regular evening adult class) Olivia and I went over Gekisai Dai Ichi and went on to learn Ni since they share most of the same moves.  We followed that up with the Bunkai.  I'm pretty proud of the fact that we learned it as fast as we have even though it's fairly elementary.  The bunkai causes me more problems but even that was going fairly well by the end of adult class.

I'm scheduled to learn the Kyoku kata with a high school guy named Cooper.  This will make my plate very full indeed, at least for that first year or so.  However, my focus immediately turned to the warm up.  This is usually by-passed because were all working out in the blackbelt class the hour before.  To add insult to injury my wife has been learning to become a yoga instructor and we thought we'd run through a routine just before I left for class and it left my legs like rubber.  So much for warming up.  

Daniel had us do kicking drills for only ten minutes.  In just ten minutes I managed to pull/frog the thigh muscles in my left leg.  What a softy!  This morning was met with the worst pain just trying to get out of bed.  Not fun.  I was able to run through the kata this morning, but I'm really enjoying sitting still.

Fresh Look

As a celebration I decided to try another theme for awhile.  I hadn't realized so much time had passed since I last posted so when I sat down to type I thought it might be nice to have a small change.  

The last month was pretty much a write off in terms of classes and practice.  I got to go to two classes right after the exam and then work had me travel until class last night.  I was feeling pretty out of shape and pretty soft, but the treat of completing a rank is that you get to learn something new!  

My current plan for my third degree is incredible aggressive.  I have to learn twelve kata with the bunkai in three years, but I also have to learn 5 kyoku kata on the side.  These are the school only kata that are not shared outside, but a brown belt needs to know them all before they achieve blackbelt.  My job is to learn those as well because my blackbelt was acknowledged from my old school, but it left me without some fundamentals.  They are actually seven Kyokus, but the first five are supposedly elementary, the sixth is for the confirmation exam a year after the blackbelt is awarded and the seventh is supposed be for fourth degree and above.  

So I was pretty excited about going to class last night, but really didn't understand how quickly I'd gotten out of shape.  I wasn't out of breath, but my muscles felt slack and warm up basics that required lots of blocking showed me that my desensitization has long since passed.  I was squirming in pain a lot.  

The good bit was that I got to learn Gekisai Dai Ichi.  I had learned it four years ago in order to help MaryAnn.  Back then I was just helping people out with whatever.  MaryAnn was learning and she was best doing it by teaching others what she was learning.  

It wasn't that I remembered it well, but I remember the basics.  It's a fairly simple pattern to remember, but leave it to me to make something more complicated than it is.  We also went through the bunkai which generally speaking, is easy, but there is a lot of moving parts.  

Here's a slow and fast breakdown of the kata:

Finally.... Nidan

While we waiting for the results of the exam Reed, MaryAnn and me lolled in the back practice area amusing ourselves with anecdotes and stories about the test that had just finished.  But time was moving on and the advanced belts were passing through to the locker room and leaving and I still hadn't been called.  

When we lined up to start the test the room was absolutely packed to the gills.  Twelve of us were testing this time which is a fairly large number for the room.  Add to this twenty plus judges and at least 10 testing partners.  The room was 90 degrees and we were already sweating profusely from lightly warming up.  

Since putting the twelve of us on one line proved impractical we were broken into three lines to give us space to move around.  Unfortunately, I placed myself on the far left of the room due to my rank and the length of my kata, but a 7th degree blackbelt placed himself in front of me which was frustrating.  I wasn't sure how to manage that because who knew what kind of crazy stuff he was going to be doing?

As part of the test process judges and come up and randomly select a person to judge.  In my case they would ask what Kata package I was going to be doing and either moved on or got my list of kata.  I'm not the two who ended up with me were particularly thrilled with doing a Nidan, but they both knew the katas in my list so I thought that was a good sign.  Unfortunately, the guys that did my test last time didn't volunteer again which bummed me out because I wanted to show how much I'd improved.  

The test always feels like it starts abruptly, but that's because that wait is several years long!  We do the bowing and then it's go time.  I don't remember doing much of the kata, but can recall the bunkai fairly well because of the thumps, sweat and exhaustion.  Reed and I selected a complex bunkai to finish everything off after the 10th kata.  I was completely shot and we had to do it four times.  Each time I had to reach down and pull the energy to get moving.  I wasn't quite gasping, but I was pretty darn close.  

And then it was done and we got to watch a few folks that has twelve kata and then it was bow out and drink some water.  A side note is that I didn't urinate for a full 12 hours afterwards, and that was after consuming liters of water.  I've never been so dehydrated.  

During the test I had to make my way around that 7th degree guy, which wasn't great, but I gather it didn't weigh against me.  I completely messed up the 9th kata I did, but I did it with great confidence so if the folks who were watching they might not have caught that.  I could fail two kata and still pass though.

After everyone had passed through I started to get concerned.  There was a lot of passes for the high rank folks and there isn't a lot of tests where everyone passes.  My nerves were getting to Reed so he went to find out where things were.  He popped his head back around the corner and waved me forward.  

Reed and I kneeled in front of the two Shihans running the test.  

"You've got two passes!" I whooped and bowed.  And then they reviewed the notes from the two judges and gave me the certificate.  And then I was done.  

I was pretty happy evening and we ended up staying up to 1am telling stories and joking, but I found that the next day I simply, was.  I was neither up or down.  Phooey.  

I was glad that I was able to start something new after so long, but I didn't necessarily feel any particular excitement.  So it was the journey after all, not the destination.  Phooey again.  I wanted that excitement of achieving something I'd worked on for so long and feel a buzz that lasted days.  Sigh.  I was just focused on trying to sort out what to work on next.  

The drive back from Yakima was long, but fun and I think that was a reward in itself.  Rather than dealing with failure, it was gift to look at the future and the possibilities expressing themselves while we talked.

Fragile Male Ego 2.0

Here's the pattern.  Practice at home when I can.  Go to class or private practice.  Get corrections, repeat.  Wake up in the middle of the night going over moves in my head or get cramps in legs because I didn't drink enough water.  Repeat.

I've got eight days before the test.  I can't believe I'm typing that.  We keeping working on detail work that Reed indicates should be related to the level of skill I should be at.   I'm meeting with Reed every day now and the heat is near unbearable in late August.  

He doesn't say I'm ready or not and I'm not asking.  I don't think I can bare to have him say it's 50/50.  The truth is that I have to be better than I was last time and I have to have judges that like what they see.  Urgh. 

I realize I can only do as best as I can, but I'd rather be done with this.  I really don't want to be in Ivana's situation where she had to come back three times.  I can only imagine that she kept going back to prove it to herself, but it absolutely burned her out on Karate.  She never came back.  School and regular life took the preference at that point and she never made space ever again.  I definitely don't want to be in that situation.  

Writing this is cathartic.  I've got to get my head in a correct space to do well, but not perseverate over the results.  The goal is to do the best I can without rushing.  

Ten straight days of practice?  Not sure about that part, but it allows for a lot of focus on one kata/bunkai a day.

2 Weeks To Go

The testing cycle is coming up in a few weeks (Sept. 6th) and I haven't found any anxiety yet; just the desire to see a success as I'd rather not practice this stuff so much anymore.  

We've added a few things and corrected a few things, but in the end I'm whittling away at small things to make myself look presentable/passable.  

Since this is a retest I'm slightly off schedule and figured I'd be testing by myself or a small group. That sounded nice because I didn't want anyone doing the same testing package as me for comparison and contrast.  I felt like the last time Olivia looked so good that it weighed against me.  Of course, I've improved and have a more appropriate partner in Reed, but I felt better without that comparison.  

As luck would have it, our sister school from Eugene will be putting up several people also working toward their Ni Dan. Hopefully I'll be shiny and awesome in comparison to them.  

I'll be trying to squeeze in as much practice as I can in the mean time. weeeee

Punishment Round

After a somewhat strenuous Black belt only class, in which I showed some nice improvement, we all headed down the hill to the school.  

I was feeling some degree of pleasure because I was given corrections and was able to deal with them right away.  Not always the case for me.

Sensei closed out the Black belt club with discussions on how to deal with test stress.  This was more oriented to our Brown belt who could potentially be testing along side me.  She's pretty young and is juggling the options.  She's never been to Yakima so she's considering do the test here in the Rose City.  

I hate the travel and expense, but I love going to the mothership.  It's a nice experience and it's great to see all the high ranking folks from around the region.  It confirms a deep bench for our Style/school even if it is just a regional thing.

Regular class started with movement.  This consisted of back and forth attacking and blocking. Although we haven't done this in awhile I didn't think much about it until we got going.  I ended up with Kyle, who's my height and quite a bit heavier than me.  I get a kick out of this because when I started at this school he was still going through puberty.  

We were doing a multitude of attacks and defenses which started out fine, but after two runs I thought the muscles in my forearms were broken.  I mean I know there is bruising, but my muscles actually felt like they burst.  By the forth run I could barely make contact.  I kept think that the bruising was going to be horrible that night or today. And to my surprise I don't have one mark on me! My arms are a bit sore, but there's not one bruise.  Totally weird.  

Notes On A Hot Day

Jeeez, I'm not really good at this posting thing lately.  The main focus is on the esoteric these days.  Smaller and smaller detail work.  It appears to be paying off as I received many compliments from my co-students and teacher last night.  I was a bit concerned about how I'd do because I'd been on vacation for two weeks and was only able to practice two or three times.  

We met on Wednesday of last week and I got a full sheet of notes.  I picked the lowest hanging fruit and started working on those pieces.  We went over the first five kata last night and everyone agreed that I was much improved.  This carried over into the normal class where we worked on two more and ripped into them with great detail.  

Exhausting due to the heat and a bruise on my foot that I picked up on vacation from walking so much?  Anyway it turned out to be a right to bed night.  

Today my foot is aching furiously.  I'm off to call the doctor.

A Little Collection Of Notes

I'm still grinding away at my practice and occasionally learning a bit of new stuff, but lately I've been teaching a bit more than practice, but it's all stuff I needed to work on anyway.  

Most of the time I've been working on Ni Pai Po which is modestly long and somewhat challenging.  However, I'm teaching it as I refine it.  I had no idea how difficult it was to pass timing on how rewarding it is to see the other person get it!  

My next big goal is to be lower in stance by the end of every kata than the start.  That goes with the assumption that I'm rising during the middle of the kata.  

I've been working with my new bunkai partner, Reed.  Which is nice as we look better matched than I did with Olivia.  We are simply practicing the basics and haven't amplified the standard stuff we usually use.  Reed usually leaves that to the last couple of weeks.  Stressful to me, but that's how he works.  

Other news:
I'm now using a blood pressure cuff twice a day.  Slightly high blood pressure for three visits in a row means I have to monitor.  Depressing.

I've been back to running after a very long time off.  I thought it was good for you.  It's a perfectly ridiculous way to spend time.  I thought it was going to help me sleep better.  it seems the fitter you get the more you have to work to get exhausted.  Silly!

I'm making knives for my three teachers.  I should have done a video on how not to do it.  However, I'm impressed how sharp these things are.  I'm up to polishing the blades a bit more before I work on the handles.  I want those done before the test this time.

Head So Big

Hey All,

Just another episode of "practice, practice, practice".  It's been tough to get motivated to do my daily practice (the entire test with shadow bunkai), but I'm trying to do a little each day so I don't forget stuff.  Mostly I'm working on two basic stances, cat and long split (Nekoashi Dachi and Zenkutsu Dachi respectively).  

Sensei had told me to video myself as much as possible and it's provided to be a cruel mistress.  Even when I think I'm doing better in practice, review doesn't pull any punches.  I've been doing this for three weeks or so and really trying to do a few things better.  That would include depth of stance and balance.  Two things that are so simple yet equate to the backbone of what everyone is going to see and judge me on.  

As I suppose all men must do, the farther I squat down the more I have a tendency to lean forward.  I've been forcing my back straight for awhile, but it means that I have to struggle with my balance in a new position which is also trying to be very low.  It also means that I have to practice this in every position in my katas.  Ouch.

Last night we had a very small class, just three of us.  So Sensei had Mark watch him and I do Haku Cho and Haku Cho Dai.  He wanted any remarks so I was prepared to take the regular onslaught of commentary following me do a kata.  

These comments aren't verbatim of course, but here's the gist:

• Tater had lower stances
• Tater had better hands

I told Sensei I'd give him a 20 later for making me look so good.  

Of course it wasn't particularly fair since it's all that I work on, but it was a nice feeling after being made to look shabby by doing the same things next to Olivia for the last year and some.  

Working The Basics

It all comes down to the basics - at least when folks are looking at you with a microscopic analysis of your skills.  Each superfluous movement of a foot, every time I look in the incorrect spot, and every stance that makes me appear standing far too tall all add up to make me look less than proficient.  

I mentioned some years back that this style of karate tends to focus deeply on Kata because one of the original guys said that some people are naturally adept at fighting so the only way to see where the skill lays is within kata and bunkai.  

Because of my intermittent history with various martial arts over the course of my life my basics are scattered at best, but has made me flexible when it comes to relearning.   

This all leads to last night.  Somewhere in my head/sub-conscious I decided that I would do all the stances as low as possible.  Just to see where it would go.  I'd stop when my knees couldn't take it or i'd fall over.  Then I'd focus on my hips.  I make them snap for every move with a punch or strike.  

What I didn't take into account was that Daniel was going to run the class and he was okay with working on our cardio.  And part of working of cardio was just trashing the legs.  Squats, sprints and slow kicks.  I mean I loved it, but by the time I got to work on kata I was pretty wrung out.  However, I made sure those stances were fantastic, just hard as heck to keep balance when moving.  

Today's practice felt a tiny bit better and a tiny bit lower.

Painful Review

Or maybe not.

It's taken me a bit to sit down and write about the test and my feelings around how it went.  It's been a week plus now and I have had plenty of time to mull over how it went.  But let me jump back to the test first.  

Reed, MaryAnn and me got to Yakima with about three hours till testing.  We checked in our hotel which was pretty rough as places go, but at least semi-clean.  Lesson learned; don't go for the cheapest place you can find.  

We drove over to the dojo and they hadn't opened up just yet so we sat around outside socializing while everyone collected.  After they opened we went in and changed into our Gis and started warming up.  Strangely, I felt very distanced emotionally and not overly nervous or excited.  

Olivia and I practiced our bunkai lightly and worked through our kata and just chatted until we were told to line up.

The test seemed to take a long time because we were with some other advanced belts and their parts took a very long time.  This gave me ample time to rest which I appreciated.  I also had a great view of their bunkai which impressed me greatly.  There were a lot of complicated throws which we rarely see in karate.  

After we completed we ended up sitting in the lobby for an hour.  Apparently, there was a lot to discuss which was intriguing.   We found out later that the judges were taking the view point that their style was different that what we were presenting.  Reed was politely explaining that our style was what we'd been doing for the last ten years.  So they had to come to terms with a lot of theoretical stuff before they could address the results.  

The higher ranking folks went into to get their results and it took another hour for just three folks.  Finally Olivia, me and another guy that tested for Nidan were ushered in.  They gave Olivia her notes first but they said right away that they all passed her.  They went into a lot of detail about what they liked and what needed to be fixed, which was minimal.  They loved her bunkai because of the way she thrashed me around.  

Then it was my turn.  They all agreed that I need to come back next quarter and do the test again.  I had been fairly hopeful, but it was balanced with everything they had said before and I had a sneaking suspicion that being partnered with Olivia probably wasn't in my best interest.  She looked so good that everything that I did looked mediocre - the differences were really emphasized.  I mean I really needed to do some things better, but you get the idea.  They also didn't like the fact that she was my partner.  They thought I needed someone that I could hit and I clearly was holding back on occasion.  Although she would say that was untrue because she was really sore.  

In the end I got two pages of very detailed notes which makes fixing things way easier when you have a check list.  So I'm burying myself in making my basics way better, but the depth of my stances really weighs against me.  I'm not totally sure how to make them deeper because it doesn't actually feel like I can.  Well shall see.

I have until September 3rd (which is the next test day) to see how far I can go.

One Day To Go - Nidan

Everything is in preparation and everything is practiced.  A few of the bunkai got shifted yesterday, but not in a big way.  Hotel is secured.  Travel is planned.  Details are detailed.  

The adrenaline is pumping and we all feel good.  Three of us are testing (Daniel, Olivia and me) and we've been told we look really good.  Better, in fact, that when Sensei took his Nidan or so he says.  

Last night we aggressively went after our bunkai for several hours.  Unfortunately, I'm feeling pretty bruised, but nothing is impaired.  

I'll do a run through today and call it good.  Tomorrow we leave in the morning and will have a couple of hours before the exam to warm up.  I'm not sure I need that much, but it'll nice to work out some of the adrenaline with a light run through for me.  

Pray to the karate gods that we get good and equitable judges and that we do a great job as well.

The Final Week to Nidan

My wife has been talking to be me about how we as people interpret adrenaline.  Is it fear or is it excitement?  

I've been calling it "a case of the nerves" for years.  In an attempt to frame my upcoming test in the best light possible I'm called it excitement, but tempered with reality.  

For all the practice tests we've been working on we've been given passing grades, but they keep on pointed out that there is a level of precociousness with the judges.  They've identified a few that simply fail people outright with not a lot of reasoning.  Or in the worst case scenarion - no reasoning.  

To put it in the best light- the judge will identify something wrong with the kata and have no way of putting into words that are helpful to the person in the test.  Definitely not helpful and it's occured over the years with no avenue of complaint.  Urgh.  

My fingers are crossed tight that we get some supportive upper ranks to give us objective scoring.  

I leave Friday morning to drive up to Yakima.  Our test is in the evening and isn't surrounded by the normal Kyu level belts or larger ceremony which is a bit of a bummer, but it means we'll be out of there fairly early depending on the amount of testers. Normally, we'd be there till midnight.

During this week we are trying to do as much fine tuning as possible before we take off.  As part of this the regular class time is totally dedicated to test run and bunkai refinement.  In the BB class I ran through the test and noticed all my flaws, but MaryAnn Sensei still thought it was a pass.  Unfortunately, Olivia couldn't be there until the evening class so I ended up going through the test again.  I was completely shot about halfway through which didn't look good with me gasping.  Thankfully I can do one run and look okay, but that stretched me pretty bad.  And then we spent the last 15 minutes working on one bunkai that I'm kinda sketchy on.  No longer!

Two Weeks To Go

Hey all, I apologise for not writing.  I'm sure there is more than enough to talk about, but the test is in two weeks and pretty much the only things I think about are the test and the test.

I kept meaning to write, but composing my thoughts in a cohesive manner has been tough.  I run through the test pretty much every day and last time I wrote I had intense workouts pretty much every day.  I didn't think I could get any more changes or improvements in.  However, last night I was given a few corrections to work on and they seem doable to fix.  A foot there and a fist there and so on.

Probably the biggest deal/change was that we converted the normal bunkai on our last kata into a Oyo.  Oyo is a longer, back and forth demonstration of the techniques in which both sides gets to play at attacking and defending.  The normal bunkai was just a single move and seemed modest compared to the kata; which is very long and complex.

Olivia and me, with the help of Reed and Daniel, contructed an interesting and graphic routine based on 6 self-defense moves.  I don't know about Olivia, but our practice leaves me pretty sore and bruised.  By Saturday of last week I was having problems with my abs and realized that my ribs were bruised.  Nice work Olivia!

Next Friday is the exam and I'll be excited to do it, but I'm a touch nervous because there is always space for failure.  If it occurs I have to wait four to six months for restest, and thankfully don't have repay the test fee.  Each rank goes up another $100.  So my NiDan will be $200.  Poor Daniel is going for his ShiDan which will go for $400.  Ouch.  

If I can get the video practice from Olivia I'll post or link here.  

On a side note, allergy season is here and practicing with a half lung is brutal.  Hopefully things will be clear by next week.  Wheezing at the test will probably be frowned upon.

One Week Straight

The question I pose, is how much karate is too much?  

I've just completed a week of karate.  Normally I try to practice every day, but during the last week I was doing work outs and refinement with other people every day except Friday.  The pinnacle was driving up to Eugene with Sensei's Reed, Daniel, and MaryAnn to meet with Sensei Albert for an intense review.  It ended up lasting 6 hours.  

Both Reed and Albert had Morris Mack as their primary instructor and Reed considers Albert a type of uncle in the complex school relationship.  I think Albert is around my age, but he's been practicing since he's been six.  Unlike many of us,  he never took any time off, so his reserve of information is tremendous.   

Our purpose was to go over our testing material to see what a fresh pair of eyes might see.  At times I thought Albert was skipping looking at basics and just looking at the main areas of interest in each kata, but as time went on he would shift occasionally to pick up errors in my more advanced katas.  This gave me a small sense of pride, assuming that it meant my basics were solid enough to be ignored.  

I left completed wiped out, but no one said that I sucked so bad that I shouldn't test.  In the greater scheme of things I'm only able to fail two Kata to blow the whole test, but I'd rather they all be good/great.  

Perhaps my only area of concern was that I didn't feel any nervousness when I was performing my kata in front of everyone.  I'd rather experience some tension, which would be more like the actual exam.  

I'm looking forward to this week. Only two class nights and time to actually practice on my own.