December 13, 2006

Black Belt Class

Last week, the head instructor at our dojo suggested than I start attending black belt class along with another brown belt student. The idea of a half hour of just brown belt material, followed by an hour of black belt class sounded divine. I have always enjoyed being in class with people who are higher ranks than I am, and lately I’m one of the high ranks and therefore spend a lot of time reviewing, not looking ahead.

So, the brown/black belt class ended up being an hour and a half of weapons katas. It was a work out. We started out with a tunfa kata needed for 1st kyu brown belt. Neither of us knew any of the kata, but by the end of the night, we were both very familiar with it. It’s a good thing too, because an hour into the class, our instructor had to leave and another instructor took over.

She was my teacher in the beginning, back in my white belt days, and she knows how to work your butt. There is no such thing as a class with her that doesn’t involve lots of sweat. She hopped onto the training floor and asked what we were doing and started doing that tunfa kata as if we’d been doing it for weeks. At first it was intimidating, but at the end of the night, when you walk out of the dojo having a decent grasp on a kata that you had no clue even existed when you first walked in, well, it feels pretty good.

What doesn’t feel good is your arms and legs the day after black belt class. I came home and was completely exhausted. I ended up falling asleep on the sofa and woke up the next morning feeling like a truck hit me.

Of course, you also need to keep in mind that I was a helper Mom at my daughter’s Kindergarten class on the same day. Twenty-five screaming 5-year-olds also have the ability to make one feel as if a truck has hit them. . .

Or several trucks for that matter.