Peg Kerr's Journal

Okay.

I'm a karate black belt.

I love Harry Potter.

What happens if you mix Harry Potter with a Hong Kong martial arts action flick? You get: Harry Chan - Hogwarts Action Hero:




( Oh, and there's even a blooper reel, too )

Tonight's black belt class was well attended, by both first and second degrees. It was taught by our senior instructor, Mr. Sidner. The first half of class tonight was spent on boxing drills, with us partnering up and doing a series of combinations: jab, punch, uppercut, hook, etc.

The second half was Japanese sword. This is the first time I've picked it up. Well, to be precise, I picked up a nerf mock sword. I haven't even bought my wooden practice one yet. We learned a series of specific choreographed moves, first blocking, then attacking, each movement flowing into the other. The one of the second degrees partnered with our instructor and together they demonstrated how when the attack faced the defense, they came together in a choreographed fight.

Watching them, I felt like Daniel-san suddenly realizing that wax-on/wax-off had another a whole other purpose than cleaning the cars.

It was exhilarating, yet intimidating. I worked after the class going through the moves again with Fiona as I still tend to forget the flow when the moves get going. And there's nothing like seeing a sword coming toward you to make your mind suddenly go blank.

But it was fun. I've never fenced or done anything like it before.

My shoulders will be sore tomorrow.

We celebrate getting our black belts with tri-part portraits. Here's mine for my first degree belt:

Black belt portrait May 2011

(Note: I am holding kamas, which I have no idea yet how to use. But I'll be learning.)

Here's Fiona's for her second degree belt.

Black belt portrait May 2011

Today we had karate portraits taken. Fiona and I both had triple exposure pictures taken to celebrate our new black belts (Fiona, second degree and me, first degree) (See the example in the icon, the one she had taken when she was awarded her first degree black belt in 2008). Fiona was also included in the assistant staff portrait, below. Fiona drew the short straw and had to hold the pose in the deepest stance:

( Assistant instructors )

I'll post the triple exposure portraits of the two of us when they arrive; they will be sent out later.

( A small semi-related unpleasantness )

It seemed to go by so fast. Karate marching basics, basics (punching and kicking), paper kicks, self-defense, pad strikes, and sparring. We ended with horse back riding punches.

I wore my White Tree of Gondor T-shirt underneath my gi for good luck, as I had planned to do for years (during pad strikes, I thought about bashing in orcs. Hey, whatever works).

( I did Zhang Du Moon for form )

( Sparring )

Mr. Sidner, who has taught everyone in our family since 2003, tied on my belt. It meant a great deal to me.



Then I tried on my new blue coat and my family joined me for the taking of pictures. I got genuinely teary. My, how long and hard I've worked for this!






Special thanks to my instructor, Mr. Sidner, who has been with us every step of the way on this journey.





Thanks to my family,











my parents and my sister Betsy, and to naomikritzer






who got up early on a Saturday morning to cheer me on!

I DID IT!!!

The display has fritzed out on my iMac. Don't know how long it'll take Rob to fix it, but until he does, all I have is my Color Nook, for simple websurfing and laborious one finger typing.

Both girls have come down very ill after Minicon. Fever, headache, sore throat, and for Fiona, vomiting.

I AM TESTING FOR BLACK BELT ON SATURDAY AND DO NOT HAVE TIME TO GET SICK.

It's extremely interesting, now that I'm actually closing in on black belt, to go back and re-read this entry, in which I used a website to do a tarot reading on the question: "What do I need to know about going for the black belt?" that I posed in October of 2006.

Here's the post that I did after my very first lesson, way back in November of 2004. I've really come a long way!

Well, 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.

I faced it alone, which was hard, and certainly not my preference. But I had no choice in the matter. Rob is out of town at an HPEF board meeting, and the girls are doing an overnight lock-in at the church.

I remembered to take a pain reliever a half hour before I left. I made a nourishing but light dinner for myself and ate it, dithered to the girls (who kissed me sweetly and assured me I would be fine) and drove to the screening, which is held in a different school in Hopkins. I had brought two water bottles, but I stopped at a nearby drugstore to buy a container of orange juice. I was worried about getting hypoglycemic during the screening and so wanted it as a backup. What do I do about my nerves? I thought to myself. This is awful. As I pulled out my wallet to pay, I suddenly became aware of the song that was playing on the store's overhead speakers, which I remembered from my college days:

Are you gonna wait for your sign,
your miracle
Stand up and fight
This is it
Make no mistake where you are
This is it
Your back's to the corner
This is it
Don't be a fool anymore
This is it
The waiting is over
No room to run
No way to hide
No time for wondering why
It's here
The moment is now
About to decide

I started laughing. It was a sign, I decided, and my heart felt much lighter as I left the store.

I had timed my arrival to twenty minutes before the screening started, to give me plenty of time to warm up. My nerves started to prey on me again, so I didn't fret myself by trying slow kicks and worrying because I was falling out of them. I stretched, and then I waited.

First: Slow kicks, followed by fast kicks. I started out well, but the slow kicks went on much, much longer than they did in last Tuesday's class, of course, and so I didn't do as well as I did then. The fault I'd been told to work on in this section was a tight snap on the front kick. Again, as the kicks continued on and on and ON I could feel every particle of moisture wrung from my body...well, meaning that I sprung out all over with sweat, but my mouth felt like the Gobi Desert. I started falling out of some when we got to the side kicks, but I kept struggling, kept trying, so it was irregular...it wasn't as if I gave up and threw in the towel. We got a water break and then started the section I dreaded most: paper kicks. Fortunately, I only had to do the first half: the hook kick/round kick combination, the ten round kicks in a row (I just can't do that) and the front scissor kick. The X-ray paper was handed across, and then the second section of paper kicks started: spin hook kicks, tornado kicks, and then multiple spinning kicks (either hook or tornado). This section I did not have to do because of my joint injuries. I was very, very glad to be able to simply rest in chunbi as the people around me struggled through it. The woman beside me looked just about dead.

Another water break, then karate marching basics. The notes from last time told me I need to improve the snap on the block. I used my fiercest karate face. This is the one section when I do my very best to look like a steel arsed bitch. Then form. The thing that drives me crazy on form in the screening is that EVERYONE rushes. I try to do the pause ONE-TWO count, and everyone around me is already on the next block. It rattles me. I got no comments on this section.

Another water break, and then self defense. I got no comments. What they look for is twist on the back foot and weight transfer. Next section was pad strikes, where they try to absolutely run you into the ground. The skill you are demonstrating, aside from power and the technical details of the kicks, is sheer stamina and determination: i.e., do you have the energy to yell and keep your hands up. I seemed to catch a second wind at this point. I figured that one thing I could do to demonstrate that I was ready to be a black belt, despite the injuries, was sheer grit, the determination to absolutely yell my head off. We did back leg round kicks on each side, back leg thrust kicks, offensive side kick, and then punching.

Finally: sparring. I fought another woman, an inch or two taller than me, rather thick set. We didn't fight long at all, and I wasn't at all winded, but presumably we managed to demonstrate the things he was looking for: setting up openings, a stopping technique (i.e., stopping a blitz with a side kick or back punch) and avoiding getting hit.

That was it. I limped to the sidelines and peeled myself out of my sparring equipment as the instructors disappeared into the office to compare notes. I felt about a hundred years old (I was certainly the oldest person there...I spoke with another man stripping down, who I judged was the next oldest, and he said he was 37. He was very surprised to hear that I was fifty.)

I was the last one to get my equipment back into my bag, because I was shaking so much. Everyone had left by the point that Mr. Sidner came back out of the office and told me that I had passed. I gave a laugh of relief that turned into a half a sob.

"You passed mostly because you were the only one yelling on the pad strikes."

I felt proud. "I figured that since there were sections where I was weaker, I had to compensate by really throwing my heart into the stuff I could do."

"Yeah, and it showed. How did your ankle feel?"

"It hurt during the paper kicks. And the pad strikes, during the thrust kicks."

"I want you to take the next week off to give yourself a chance to recuperate. I don't want you to keep re-injuring yourself."

This was welcome news. I limped out to the car, slowly put my gear away, and drove home. Stopping at Starbucks along the way to get a chocolate brownie. Because, you know, I damn well deserved it.

I had my last class before this coming Friday's second screening. (I have to miss Thursday's class because of school conferences.)

All those slow kicks are apparently paying off. My balance was much, much better than it has been, which gave my confidence a real boost. I didn't have to set down once during the slow kicks.

I still suck at paper kicks though. I don't know if I suck badly enough to fail me, but we'll see.

My ankle is problematic. I'll have it wrapped and just hope for the best.