The Truffle Is, Like, Totally Undervalued

I may not test for my orange belt on the 6^th. Mike Sensei has given me an out since I had a about a month and half less practice on the orange syllabus than others and to be honest I'm just not feeling all that confident. I have most of it in muscle memory, so if I can figure out what I'm supposed to be doing I can but the association between the words and the moves are just not strong in my mind. Especially when I am expected to be able to perform them all solo as either uke (recieving the technique) or nage (defending with the technique). I'll still get promoted before the summer is over but it will be like the yellow belt test: I'll be doing it solo (or maybe with 1 or 2 others) and it will be that much harder. But probably easier if I'm more confident about what I'm doing. I'll decide for sure this Monday at the end of practice but chances are low that I won't back out for now.

originally uploaded by トースト.

• 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.