Grading report

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Official grading report time..

I started off by majorly carbo-loading on saturday night. Wholemeal pasta with chicken, pesto, and vegetables.. Yum! Ate so much I thought I would explode, but wanted all my muscles to be filled up with lots of nice glycogen to keep me going the next day.
I then packed my bag, ironed my gi, and went to bed SUPER nervous!

Eventually I fell asleep only to wake at 5:30am for a quick shower and a big bowl of all bran.
Then it was time to jump in the car and head to sydney!

We stopped quickly at maccas for John to get some breaky, and I ran into a fellow gradee there. He was with his family and we had a bit of a chat. It went a like this:

Me: "So did are you nervous?"
Him: "Nah, I'm pretty good"
His wife: "No you're not!"
Me: "hehe.. how did you sleep last night?"
Him: "Not bad..fairly peacefully"
His wife: "No you didn't! You tossed and turned all night!"

lol. We then continued on to sydney, arriving at the venue about 40 minutes early... just enough time to change and freak out with the other 90 or so people!
But eventually we started. Kancho (the club's founder) took strikes and blocks.. talked a fair bit and we were all lulled into a bit of a false sense of security.

Then Shihan (Chief Instructor) took stances and kicks, and picked up the pace immeasurably.
Lots of stances, although only about 45 seconds in sumo, which wasn't too bad.
Had two bits of feedback.. One - we were stepping back from neko ashi dachi (cat stance) into sanchin dachi, and I didn't step back wide enough. Of course S. A. R. hapenned to be looking at me at that point, and gave me a bit of a lecture on how wide my stance should be.. I wanted to say "But what about all my other ones? They were all good!"
My other feedback was sumo stance.. once again S. A. R. was going behind the lines checking stances and commenting on people's posture and height. As he came along I could head "good", "excellent", "bad - do this, fix that etc". As he came behind me I got a "good" comment.. pretty happy with that considering his standards!

Then kicks.. lots of evil kicks moving through in long foward stance and back in cat stance.. round kick was especially difficult that way. Then onwards with a kicking combination that was step through front kick, round kick, side kick and turn, then stepping back kick. Going one way I was fine, but the other way I kept getting the wrong leg foward. In desparation, I modified the combo so I was always doing the back kick off the same leg, and hoped no one would notice!

Eventually we got the nod to grab a quick drink.. however it was sooo hot that my head wasn't coping, and as I bowed out to leave the line blood started cascading out of my nose! If you could think of the worst possible times to have a nose bleed, this would definetely be one of them!
I ran to my bag, grabbed a mouthful of water, a handfull of tisses, and shoved some up my nose and used the rest to wipe my blood off the floor.

I went back to line with everyone staring at me and asking what had happenned.. We started combinations.. the most gruelling part of the grading, and all the while my nostril tissues were becoming soaked with blood. I had C.L., a very tough 3rd dan black belt come up to me after a while and let me know that I could be excused if neccessary. However, it's not a good idea to bow out of a grading, and I was just desperately hoping it would stop bleeding soon.
Eventually the blood started dripping through the tissues and I had to excuse myself. I took myself into the toilets and stuck my head under the cold tap until the bleeding slowed. I re-stuffed my nose with clean tissues and went back into the grading to catch the last 5 or so minutes of combinations.

We were given another quick drink break and I was sweating so profusely that I decided to break out the gatorade. Half a bottle went in and promptly tried to come out as my stomach decided that it wanted none of this hydration business!

We then were put into kata groups. As there were so many people grading, we had two brown belt groups, two shodan-ho groups, one shodan group and one nidan group. Each group was given two or three senior instructors to watch over and assess them.
Luckily, the short break had given my nose the chance to pretty much stop bleeding. I was glad - it allowed me to re-focus and concentrate on kata which is by far my strongest point.

We did 1st/2nd kata by the numbers.. good and strong kata.. fast but not manic speed. Then it was all the remaining kata own timing. Saifa was good, slightly rushed and very shaky as my balance was not playing nicely by this time. Bassai Dai was ok, but very rushed towards the end..
At this point, I decided "stuff it! I'm not staying with the group any more", and did a much better seiunchin. Empi was a disaster.. everyone had their own timing for this one and I was concerned that I would get landed on as the line in front of me did the jump. Also slipped and just missed the shoulder punch as I stepped through. Whoops!

Then it was time for my grading kata.
All groups did sanseru first together, then they got to sit down while we did it again alone. I feel like I did good kata (not my best ever), but still very solid, and was rewarded afterwards with really positive comments about it.
Then everyone got up and did Sepai (my absolute favourite and best kata) once, then sat down while we did it again. I took my time, showed off my stances, and I believe, stood out.
Then we got to sit down while the higher grades continued on with their kata. The nidans were absolutely brilliant, even considering their exhaustion level at that point.

When kata was done, straight away it was sparring time. This was the bit I was shitting myself about. I lined up with a fellow student, but he was moved to spar another guy, and C.C. (my absolute karate hero and mentor) was put against me. We were supposed to start off nice and light, but within seconds all I could think was "holy shit!" as she punched me continually in the head and front kicked me repeatedly. At one point I came in for an attack and she timed a front kick impecably.. I was suddenly thrown back a couple of metres and placed firmly on my backside! :O The barrage continued for around 10 minutes until finally we heard "yame" (stop).

I rotated gratefully to face an older lady who said she was stuffed and then launched a kick straight into my groin. As we don't kick below the belt usually it came as a bit of a shock. The round continued until I rotated to face a brown belt guy who had all the fancy moves, but nothing really to back them up...
Then the sparring warm up was over, and we had to face the senior instructors group by group. I got a nidan grade a.r.m. who's sparring I was very wary about as he likes to grapple a lot. Got through it ok, even getting a nice shuto into his head which he congratulated me about.
Them our time was up and the other groups got their beatings.
The shodans and nidans were used in each and every round, so when the time came for them to get theirs, they were soooo stuffed. Some of them are elite level athletes and I've never seen them as stuffed as they were sunday.

But finally it was all over and time to get our certificates and shiny new belts. I was so happy and still in serious disbelief.. it took until I trained last night go "wow! I'm a black belt! I'm actually at the place I have been working so hard to reach for all these years."

After lots of hugs and photos we eventually left the grading location... and dived head first into a KFC! I was sooo hungry now the adrenaline had disapeared, all I wanted to do was eat a horse and drink another 5L of water. Then the long drive back home where I dozed a bit, but was starting to feel the aches and pains. I have never been so glad to get out of the car, dive into the shower and then collapse onto my chair, not to move for the rest of the night!


It's an amazing feeling finally grading to black belt.. something I wanted to achieve for so long, but often doubted I would make it. To some extent it hasn't properly sunk in yet.. and may not for quiet a while, but for now it's nice to celebrate. :)