The Dan Test…

In addtion to the kickin’ series of seminars, this weekend also marked the bi-annual black belt examination. There were only two examinees this time, one of which was Raleigh Parrot of our dojo. He was testing for first degree black belt, or Shodan. He did a fine job and gave it his best attempt despite the five hours of training that we did prior. The other guy testing for Nidan (I did not ever catch his name well enough to state it) also gave a pretty solid showing.

It was a very fast paced test due to the fact that there were only two taking it. During ours, at least we had the luxury of waiting a few minutes while they switched partners around, or another group was going. Not the case in this one, it was lock-step through the rubrick at a pretty fast clip.

I think that Raleigh did a couple of the best katas that I’ve ever seen him do. His basics were a little weak in a few places, but he got possessed by some sort of demon during the sparring section and really took it to the other guy. The other examinee had some control issues and was basically flailing madly at his opponents.

Unfortunately, though, this day did not see any black belt promotions. Having been in this position twice before, I can speak from experience that not passing a black belt test is a very hard thing to endure. I know the entire dojo is proud of Raleigh for the effort that he put into this test. Nothing can take away the training that he put in and he will continue to improve and show them what he’s made of for the next exam in April.

I caught this awesome shot of him actually breaking the laws of physics and seperating his leg from his body.

You did a great job, man. We’ll get you ready for the next one and you’ll take them by storm!!