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ciroccojRight, so, the only other black belt test I'd attended lasted approximately 2-3 hours. There were four people testing for 1st Dan, one for 2nd Dan, three testers, and maybe a dozen family and friends in our tiny little dojang in Nepean.
Yesterday's started at 2PM and was finally over except for the pictures around 7PM. Seventeen of us were testing, including five 7th Dans (that's the level you get to be called Master), one 4th Dan, six 2nd Dans, and five 1st Dans (that was us). There were over a hundred people watching, at the big dojang in Orleans. And when the non-7th Dans tested, every one of us had a personal tester. Daniel and Justin were assigned the two absolute toughest testers in our dojang. Joy.
Sounds little nerve-wrecking, but the nice thing about it was there were so many people there that it was hard to get all that nervous. It was not even remotely All About Us; we were mere bit players in a "historic" testing where FIVE PEOPLE WERE TESTING FOR 7TH DAN, and the person running it was the one and only NINTH DAN IN CANADA. That was what kept being repeated throughout the day, because it really was pretty damn cool. There are only nine Dans you can get, and ten 9th Dans in the world. And two of the 7th Dan candidates were women, too - the first women to test for 7th Dan in Canada. Actually, there were (as of Friday) only two 7th Dans in Canada. Now there are seven. (Don't believe me? Go see.) So all in all, they were right to go on about the whole historicalness of the day.
It took 2.5 hours before we did anything. The 7th Dans did all their patterns, step sparring, sparring skits (some absolutely hilarious ones in there), and breaks first.
It's hard to maintain abject fear or even nervousness for 2.5 hours, you know? Your adrenaline gland eventually just throws up its hands in disgust and goes to sleep. Besides, after you've watched people who have been doing this for thirty years and run their own schools screwing up their patterns, not being able to break their boards, and messing up their oral answers, it takes a lot of the pressure off.
By the time we went up, the nerves had died down considerably. It's all a bit of a blur after that.
Patterns went well for everyone except Justin, who had to restart one of his, and me, who completely missed a couple of my moves, but twelve of us were doing them at the same time so it wasn't like the world's eyes were upon us or anything.
Step-sparring would've been awful if we hadn't seen the earlier screwups, 'cause I was so focussed on helping Justin remember his moves that I kept forgetting my own. Ditto self-defence, especially the knife defences. Had we been using real knives, I'd be learning a new way to type right now. One that didn't involve as many fingers.
The breaks? Were AWESOME. All the 1st Dans were able to do ours, almost all on the first try, and the look of pride on each kid's face was awesome. The boys both did flying sidekicks over three people, breaking one 1/2 inch board each, and I did a side kick with two 3/4" boards.
Questions were a little tougher. Daniel and I, who usually do pretty well, got a bit lost on our answers. Justin, who is often lost, aced his.
And then we were done. And got our evaluations from the panel. Daniel's tester (who was testing for 7th Dan herself, and who has always been the toughest tester at our school), after pointing out areas he should work on, concluded by telling him she was very impressed by how much he'd grown and improved, and telling him he should be proud of the job he'd done. Justin's tester, whose method of instruction is to point out everything you're doing wrong and whose greatest compliment to Justin ever had previously been, "The only correction I have for you here is X," told him he was impressed with how hard he'd worked, how much he'd improved, and how well he'd performed on his test.
I nearly burst into tears for both. I think it's good to praise children - if they deserve it - in order to build up their self-esteem, but I also think kids need at least one person in their life who is stingy with praise. Someone from whom praise is as rare as a diamond, and almost as hard to get. Having those two people compliment the kids meant the world to them.
And then there were the belt ceremonies. And then there were the pictures, and hugs and congratulations and broken boards being signed. And then there was a mad dash across the city to get dressed and then a banquet downtown. And there was much food, and there were many speeches, and then there was the drive home, and then there was much collapsing done by all.
Today was daylight savings time clock thingy. I woke up at 8:30, thought about how I really didn't have anything pressing to do and wasn't it too bad that I couldn't make myself go back to sleep and then all of a sudden it was 10AM, and time for Dim Sum. Yangtze Dim Sum, btw. Rocks.
OK. Now. I know there's a house here under all this crap that's been piling up. Let's see if I can find it.
I think I had a life somewhere in there too. Gonna try to find that as well :)
Yesterday's started at 2PM and was finally over except for the pictures around 7PM. Seventeen of us were testing, including five 7th Dans (that's the level you get to be called Master), one 4th Dan, six 2nd Dans, and five 1st Dans (that was us). There were over a hundred people watching, at the big dojang in Orleans. And when the non-7th Dans tested, every one of us had a personal tester. Daniel and Justin were assigned the two absolute toughest testers in our dojang. Joy.
Sounds little nerve-wrecking, but the nice thing about it was there were so many people there that it was hard to get all that nervous. It was not even remotely All About Us; we were mere bit players in a "historic" testing where FIVE PEOPLE WERE TESTING FOR 7TH DAN, and the person running it was the one and only NINTH DAN IN CANADA. That was what kept being repeated throughout the day, because it really was pretty damn cool. There are only nine Dans you can get, and ten 9th Dans in the world. And two of the 7th Dan candidates were women, too - the first women to test for 7th Dan in Canada. Actually, there were (as of Friday) only two 7th Dans in Canada. Now there are seven. (Don't believe me? Go see.) So all in all, they were right to go on about the whole historicalness of the day.
It took 2.5 hours before we did anything. The 7th Dans did all their patterns, step sparring, sparring skits (some absolutely hilarious ones in there), and breaks first.
It's hard to maintain abject fear or even nervousness for 2.5 hours, you know? Your adrenaline gland eventually just throws up its hands in disgust and goes to sleep. Besides, after you've watched people who have been doing this for thirty years and run their own schools screwing up their patterns, not being able to break their boards, and messing up their oral answers, it takes a lot of the pressure off.
By the time we went up, the nerves had died down considerably. It's all a bit of a blur after that.
Patterns went well for everyone except Justin, who had to restart one of his, and me, who completely missed a couple of my moves, but twelve of us were doing them at the same time so it wasn't like the world's eyes were upon us or anything.
Step-sparring would've been awful if we hadn't seen the earlier screwups, 'cause I was so focussed on helping Justin remember his moves that I kept forgetting my own. Ditto self-defence, especially the knife defences. Had we been using real knives, I'd be learning a new way to type right now. One that didn't involve as many fingers.
The breaks? Were AWESOME. All the 1st Dans were able to do ours, almost all on the first try, and the look of pride on each kid's face was awesome. The boys both did flying sidekicks over three people, breaking one 1/2 inch board each, and I did a side kick with two 3/4" boards.
Questions were a little tougher. Daniel and I, who usually do pretty well, got a bit lost on our answers. Justin, who is often lost, aced his.
And then we were done. And got our evaluations from the panel. Daniel's tester (who was testing for 7th Dan herself, and who has always been the toughest tester at our school), after pointing out areas he should work on, concluded by telling him she was very impressed by how much he'd grown and improved, and telling him he should be proud of the job he'd done. Justin's tester, whose method of instruction is to point out everything you're doing wrong and whose greatest compliment to Justin ever had previously been, "The only correction I have for you here is X," told him he was impressed with how hard he'd worked, how much he'd improved, and how well he'd performed on his test.
I nearly burst into tears for both. I think it's good to praise children - if they deserve it - in order to build up their self-esteem, but I also think kids need at least one person in their life who is stingy with praise. Someone from whom praise is as rare as a diamond, and almost as hard to get. Having those two people compliment the kids meant the world to them.
And then there were the belt ceremonies. And then there were the pictures, and hugs and congratulations and broken boards being signed. And then there was a mad dash across the city to get dressed and then a banquet downtown. And there was much food, and there were many speeches, and then there was the drive home, and then there was much collapsing done by all.
Today was daylight savings time clock thingy. I woke up at 8:30, thought about how I really didn't have anything pressing to do and wasn't it too bad that I couldn't make myself go back to sleep and then all of a sudden it was 10AM, and time for Dim Sum. Yangtze Dim Sum, btw. Rocks.
OK. Now. I know there's a house here under all this crap that's been piling up. Let's see if I can find it.
I think I had a life somewhere in there too. Gonna try to find that as well :)
