Promoted to Pain

So within "2-3 weeks" apparently meant "next week." And I did really well actually. I only flubbed one defense and I realized as I did it, stopped and started over. Testing took approximately 40 minutes of beating on me and consisted of:

• Demonstrate all four wrist exercise and know their names (Sensei started trying to confuse by asking me to demonstrate attacking with nikyo which is a lot like saying "show me a lunge stretch attack").


• Perform all five basic defenses on the yellow belt syllabus on the left and right hand side. This is where I flubbed mostly because I am still working on associated a quick string of scots accented japanese any one of a number of instructions–I also am fighting the second guessing myself game–thus when Sensei said "Gyaku hanmi mune tsuki irimi kokyu nage." I had a second of panic, and was still trying to figure out which one I was supposed to be doing when my partner attacked and then started the wrong defense.

  I also had harassments in here. The rest of the class was divided into two groups of 5 who would take turns attacking me for 2-4 minutes (at a time per group) and I could do the one defense I was currently testing as they all came at me.

• Demonstrate "Suwari Waza Ryote Tori Irimi Kokyu Dosa," a seated exercise where your partner grabs both your wrists in front of you while seated. You need to unbalance and topple hip and then pin him.


• Demonstrate the yellow belt knife disarm.


• Demonstrate the six hazushi waza (I should look that up I have no idea what it means, ah: "techniques from escaping holds" I'm pretty sure that's not literal though) escapes from a bear hug, head lock, choking, the hand crush, front kick and side kick. I got a harassment on every single one and at the last one people were allowed to use any attack, so before Sensei called a stop to it I was being bear hugged from behind, choked, and had two different people attempting to crush either hand while the fifth guy half heartedly tried to kick me through the crush of people.


• Perform the yellow belt tai gi in 65 seconds (margin of error +/- 2 seconds). The tai gi includes: sitting and bowing to one's partner, followed by six defenses on the right and left hand side (the last defense ending in a pin), then bowing again.


• Demonstrate general knowledge of aikido and basic dojo courtesy.

Like I said I did really well, and I even feel really well about how I did on my harassments (I never got over excited and started just splatting people, I was calm and in control the whole time) and the tai gi I performed just once in 66 seconds. Even better: apparently my test was also Sempai Joe's test for his first instructor rank. Since I passed he did too and is now Kyosei-ho and can train/submit people for grading up to 3^rd kyu/green belt. Luckily it was a surprise and I didn't have the added pressure.

So now I'm 5^th kyu/yellow belt and supposedly on track to test for my orange belt in May when Geoff Sensei arrives from Exeter.