I ended up taking off from Tai Chi yesterday since I was still having a little bit of trouble with my hips from the exam on Saturday. I pushed things so hard that my hips were aching and walking was a little rough at times.
At the begining of our class today, Sensie Noia told us our results from our exam. Both my wife and I received a kari, a half rank, so we are both considered 2nd Kyu but have areas that we both need to improve on. I am satisfied with the result and if any thing, it will make me train ever harder than before.
Class was good tonight. We spent most of it working on kumite drills and it good was good to do it again. I haven’t done any sparring in class for almost two months, since my ribs were hurt, and I feel it really set me back. My feet felt heavy when I was shifting and I was having a very hard time doing simple reverse punches when shifting in to attack. One thing that I did notice is that my right leg roundhouse has improved a good amount. Doing the roundhouse with my rear leg when shifting in or with the front shuffling in felt better then ever before. It had good height and I was able to snap it back faster than ever before.
Sensei Noia had us working on basic sparring drills. Shift in and jab, shift in reverse punch and shift in roundhouse. Since most of us haven’t been sparring too much, he always starts us off with the basics after exams are over and I glad that he does.
One drill that I like is where he has one of us hold our hand up and the other attacks based on where our partners hands are placed. For example, if our partner puts a hand under in front of their face, we throw a jab or reverse punch at it. If they put both hands on their side just above belt level, we throw a roundhouse kick. It is a good drill to help with focus and reaction time.
It was a good class but I know that I really have a lot of work to do on my sparring.
Doug,
Congratulations on your promotion. Thank you also for answering my question regarding other people’s exam results. I have tried to maintain a similiar mindset and not concern myself with other people’s results. In part, I think that I would continue training whether “person x” was in class, not in class, passed, failed, whatever. There are times when I become distracted by an obvious unearned promotion. Recently a 1st kyu in my club was promoted to Shodan. In my opinion, this person should not have even been allowed to test for Shodan, I like him but his karate is poor. However, my Sensei must see something else in this man, he allowed him to test and promoted him. I felt that my own accomplishment and rank was diminished by this promotion. This is my problem and I will have to build a bridge to get over it.
Keep up the training and remember to grip the floor.