Good news, i passed my 1st grading today

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[john2054]

Well I have been training for about five months now on and off, and with a recent application to the art. All of that was recognized today with my first grading. This means a lot to me. Only another ten years to go and i can hope for my blackbelt first dan! John.:)

[robin_jet_alt]

Congratulations. I still remember when I passed my first grading. It's a nice feeling.

[JJF]

Congratulations. I recently had my first student reach 2. kyu. First time I had one of my students grade in front of a panel of judges at a national seminar. It felt just as great as grading myself :)

At the same time I did a little math.. 25 gradings in five different budo since 1983. Funny thing is that you never quite get used to it. It's a bit scary every time, but also a great opportunity to get some details in place. Great learning experience.

BTW: 10 years? that's a long way to shodan... hope you get a chance to ramp it up a bit.. but remember to enjoy the process.

JJ

[john2054]

Thanks Robin and Jorgen. Yes I am still feeling a little bit gleeful over the whole prospect. The thing is, in my club they don't just *give* belts away, you really have to earn them. And the ten years til black was really a hazy guess on my part. Perhaps it would take ten til second dan?

Anyway let me let you in on a little bit of the picture what happened yesterday. We started the class in the usual way. Warm up then waza. Mostly projections (nage) to begin with. Then about three quarters of the way through the lesson he calls me and one of the classes dan grade aikidoka (lets just call him G for the time being), and tells us to execute a number of techniques, with me as tori and G uke. Well some of these I remembered but most I couldn't (because my memory for japanese names is pretty bad).

The good news however is that when I couldn't remember the name of a technique the sensei and g were happy to remind me, and then i copied and got it right. I have got a good recall for internalizing these moves, you see i have been doing aikido for over five months now on and off,

Then I sat down and had a rest whilst the rest of the group worked on Ikkyo. Before I joined in again, and then was called to the head of the class at the end of the session to be rewarded with a hearty pat on the back and that fabled first colour (5th kyu). Nice one!

[robin_jet_alt]

Don't worry about how long it takes. FWIW it took me 10 years to get to shodan.

[JJF]

Actually... shodan also took me 10 years.. but I did have a couple of years away from training (work, having children, finishing my master thesis - stuff like that). And for long periods I was only able to go to the dojo once a week. However I urge my students to stick to it, and when I think they are about ready I make them start preparing for the next grading. They have to meet the criteria, but the process of preparing actually speeds up the learning process and help them focus for a while. But it's a balance of course..