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We had our last class for the year last night. It was pretty relaxed. We were instructed by the soto-deshi (not uchideshi as I've previously referred to him). We did tsuki attacks. Tsuki iriminage, nikkyo, and sankyo. After class a couple of us went to the deshi's house for a drink. We ended up watching the test video. I was very interested in seeing my ukemi for one of the 5th kyu's test. It wasn't bad. Seeing my test was a bit strange at first, but it's definitely a good exercise to go through. The deshi commented that my posture was very good.
The deshi is our new shodan. He was graded last Thursday as well. The test was sprung on him. He had no idea what was going on. He thought Sensei wanted one of the nidans to demonstrate something on him. I thought it was a mock black belt test, but it wasn't. It was the real thing. His test lasted about half an hour during which he lost a contact lens and had his asthma act up. By the end of it he had a blazing headache and could hardly catch his breath.
He told us last night that he is only one of two people who didn't puke during their shodan test.
We also watched an old video from two years ago. It was taken during a randori class. Sensei wasn't there for the class. It was a free practice for those who were testing for their black belts that year. There was one shodan candidate, two nidan candidates, and one sandan candidate. And the future soto-deshi who was a 3rd kyu at the time. He wasn't even supposed to be in the practice as it was for 2nd kyu and up.
Anyway, the part we wanted to see went something like this. The 3rd kyu was very eager to learn. He was in there taking ukemi as often as he could. The black belt candidates were handling attacks proficiently, but when it came time for the 3rd kyu to be nage things would grind to a halt. He had to think about things a bit as most kyu levels probably would. He got one of the potential nidans in what looked like an attempt at doing kotegaishe, but he was in waaaaaay too close. Noooooo ma-ai whatsoever. The 3rd kyu was focusing so closely on the hand in his grip that he didn't see the free hand coming at him from his left. The loud crack of the open hand slap to his face echoed in the dojo and everyone erupted in gales of laughter. The other potential nidan was bent over holding his stomach which was funny in itself because he's usually so cool and composed. And the sandan candidate looked into the camera and gave two thumbs up.
We rewound it and watched it through three or four times and it was as funny as the previous viewing.
The "slap heard around the dojo" is why the deshi emphasizes having proper ma-ai so much when he teaches.
12-24-2004 07:20 AM 