Third screening
Mar. 12th, 2011 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrWell, I lived through it. Barely.
The test was two hours long. An hour was just kicking: basic kicks and paper kicks. I did only the first half of paper kicks (the hook kick/round kick combination, ten (multiple) rounds kicks, and the jump scissor kick). I was excused from the spin hook kicks or tornado kicks, courtesy of my bum ankle and knee.
The point of the third screening is to see if you can do all the components (kicking, karate marching basics, form, self defense, pad strikes and sparring), with proper technique, past the point of physical exhaustion. I felt pretty bad after the first section, kicking, because toward the end of the basic kicks part, with the side kicks, I wasn't able to keep every kick up. I guess it will depend on how much allowance they will give me for age and general physical decrepitude. The hard thing is, if you start to think you've already failed, you've still got an hour and a half of testing to go, and if you give up mid-screening, you WILL fail. So I just sucked it up and gave it my all. The paper kicks definitely went better than last time: I was able to finish all ten kicks in a row, although I couldn't have sworn my form was perfect. After self defense, I got pretty dizzy and shaky and had to exit the room, throw cold water on my face and neck and dash back in. My own senior instructor held my pad during pad strikes. I felt I did really well during those: I kept my hands up and my fists tight, observed proper form, and yelled really, really loud. I had remembered that it was my pad strikes that helped me pass the screening last time. During the sparring match (I was sparring another older woman, age forty-five), I got clocked good in the head. Oh, god, I hope that isn't another concussion, I thought, mildly panicking. I finished the match in good order, and then got dizzy and abruptly sat down right afterward; they had to peel me out of my gear. But I was fine and waved everybody off, drank some water and packed up to go home.
My senior instructor came out of the office as I was walking out the door. "Nice job," he told me.
I hope he wouldn't say that if I had just flunked the screening.
No headache, no vision disturbances, no discomfort of any kind, last night or today. I'm a bit loathe to do anything strenuous today (I don't intend to go to today's sparring class today, for instance) and I'll probably be stiff and sore tomorrow.
I was the oldest one there, out of a group of maybe thirty-five candidates. Halfway through the screening, I thought I had maybe flunked. By the end, I was more cautiously optimistic. So I don't know.
Maybe I'll drop by the school today, if not to go to sparring, just to see my instructor. Maybe he'll put me out of my misery and tell me whether I passed or not.
The test was two hours long. An hour was just kicking: basic kicks and paper kicks. I did only the first half of paper kicks (the hook kick/round kick combination, ten (multiple) rounds kicks, and the jump scissor kick). I was excused from the spin hook kicks or tornado kicks, courtesy of my bum ankle and knee.
The point of the third screening is to see if you can do all the components (kicking, karate marching basics, form, self defense, pad strikes and sparring), with proper technique, past the point of physical exhaustion. I felt pretty bad after the first section, kicking, because toward the end of the basic kicks part, with the side kicks, I wasn't able to keep every kick up. I guess it will depend on how much allowance they will give me for age and general physical decrepitude. The hard thing is, if you start to think you've already failed, you've still got an hour and a half of testing to go, and if you give up mid-screening, you WILL fail. So I just sucked it up and gave it my all. The paper kicks definitely went better than last time: I was able to finish all ten kicks in a row, although I couldn't have sworn my form was perfect. After self defense, I got pretty dizzy and shaky and had to exit the room, throw cold water on my face and neck and dash back in. My own senior instructor held my pad during pad strikes. I felt I did really well during those: I kept my hands up and my fists tight, observed proper form, and yelled really, really loud. I had remembered that it was my pad strikes that helped me pass the screening last time. During the sparring match (I was sparring another older woman, age forty-five), I got clocked good in the head. Oh, god, I hope that isn't another concussion, I thought, mildly panicking. I finished the match in good order, and then got dizzy and abruptly sat down right afterward; they had to peel me out of my gear. But I was fine and waved everybody off, drank some water and packed up to go home.
My senior instructor came out of the office as I was walking out the door. "Nice job," he told me.
I hope he wouldn't say that if I had just flunked the screening.
No headache, no vision disturbances, no discomfort of any kind, last night or today. I'm a bit loathe to do anything strenuous today (I don't intend to go to today's sparring class today, for instance) and I'll probably be stiff and sore tomorrow.
I was the oldest one there, out of a group of maybe thirty-five candidates. Halfway through the screening, I thought I had maybe flunked. By the end, I was more cautiously optimistic. So I don't know.
Maybe I'll drop by the school today, if not to go to sparring, just to see my instructor. Maybe he'll put me out of my misery and tell me whether I passed or not.