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First of all, my sincerest apologies for not keeping my journal updated as I promised I would.
Yesterday was testing day and my first opportunity to test since I started about year ago. Usually there is testing every six months, but I had a 5 months break due to exams and an exchange students program.
In our dojo, we follow Nishio Sensei, and we use 10 kyu grades. But we can also receive more than one grade at a time.
Anyway, the 4 of us that were going to test had been training extra hard the last couple of weeks, and the sempai and instructors helped us by training basics. You could really feel the motivating factor of the test.
When it came to the testing, I was a bit nervous, but not as much as I had feared because earlier that day I went to a grueling jobinterview, so that took the edge off.
We started out by warming up, and doing tenkan, ukemi and shikko in a group. After that I was asked to do Ayhanmi Ikkyo, Nikkyo, Sankyo, Irimi nage, Shihonage and kotegaishi. Then I sat down and watched and relaxed while the others did a few techniques.
After a short break I was asked to do yakohanmi ikkyo, nikkyo, sankyo, shihonage and kotegaishi with tenkan and then free techniques both aihanmi and yakohanmi. As far as I remember I did nikkyo and sankyos.
Two of the others were asked to do ken tai ken, kaiten nage, and various jo and bokken techniques.
After we finished and a short waiting period we got to talk to the Sensei and the two sempai that graded us and got comments suggestions and our new rank.
They told me that they were pleasantly suprised with my progress the last couple of months after my break, and that they knew I had potential. Then they told me that they had decided to give me the 7th kyu, bordering on 6th
All in all I was very pleased with my result and the way the grading had been done. I didn't know what to expect, and I thought I was going to get the 9th, or perhaps 8th kyu, so I was very happy
The two students that did the bokken and jo techniques got the 5th kyu, and the third also got the 7th.
Afterwards we went out and got a couple of beers with the sensei and sempais, hence the "slightly hungover" part
11-20-2003 02:53 AM 
