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Every year we do a demonstration at the Bass Festival (http://www.bassfestival.com) in Rio Vista. This year was no exception. We did our demonstration in front of the music stage in between bands, packed up our mats and went back to the dojo...
...where we then had a shodan presentation for one of my students. He's leaving for a trip to Japan next week, so it's a good time for him to be ready. And he was. It's always tempting to compare presentations, especially with them being so close together (my first student to get her black belt gave her presentation this summer), but it would be apples and oranges. The best I can say is both were excellent and both reflected the personality of the person.
But a shodan presentation during the Bass Festival attracted some attention. We got people in to watch. It didn't hurt that Erick's technical presentations and his randori were impressive to watch. Of course I'll be reviewing the video tape looking for mistakes to correct (it's my job, right? ), but he did a great job.
Then this Saturday we had a children's promotion. Once again, it was really great. To really understand my pleasure in this you need to know that as late as last Monday there were five kids whose promotion was in question. I do all the testing before the day of the promotion. Monday was their last chance to test in time for the promotion. Apparently my pointing this out to them the previous Thursday really focused their attention.
Okay, they're kids, so they're going to have issues with focus sometimes. Nonetheless, it was more than a little gratifying to see them buckle down and get it. Yesterday's class had an atmosphere of seriousness that I've been trying to get back to since we moved in to the new building.
And the weekends before that we were building our new mat. 1000 square feet. Up from our old 480 square feet. It's so spaceyouss. For the record: canvas is much better to roll on than carpet. And it's easier to clean.
But all of this adds up to work. So I'm off to Reno this weekend for some...
10-24-2006 02:51 PM 
), but he did a great job.