Transformations

Lessons to be learned and understood in the martial arts are to be learned by your rank. Tuesday's class came and went and the lesson learned then was that I needed to give myself a little bit rope, not to try so hard for perfection because when you trying to envision yourself as a black belt when just starting out, it isn't conducive to your training as a lower rank. Performance, technique and mental ability all rolled into one when you're nervous is another issue.

Yes, I was extremely nervous. I had never experienced a Shuri Ryu promotion so I wasn't sure what to expect, that in itself give you anxiety for the unknown. Throw in wanting to perform at your absolute best for your spouse just makes it worse. I was a wreck.

Class began, and Sensei did the warm up, same warm up we've done from day one, light stretches, a bit of cardio, and then he made us do stance drills with footwork across the dojo floor. Then he had each of us line up across the floor to do Ippons, Tom doing his higher ones, Ippon 12 and up, Karla doing Ippon 8 and up, and me starting at Ippon 1. He watched as we performed, watching and making us do over should we forget. With my nervousness, I had forgotten about my footwork, and yes, I had to do mine over a few times. Once Ippons were over, same drill with the Kihons, not only was I struggling with my technique but Karla was having difficulties as well. Maybe that's why Sensei had us do it this way because I realized that no matter how hard you practice you will still struggle whether you're a white belt or a green belt. Once this was over, Sensei moved to kata... he gave me a break to catch my breath and also the time to watch other's perform their kata, showing me without telling me to follow their example. Tom performed a new kata he was just taught, Dan Enn Sho. Watching him pause and move through his kata had me thinking about where I should pause, then it was Karla's turn to perform her newest kata, Eppi Sho. By the time it was my turn to perform Wunsu, I knew I was ready, the mistakes I made during Ippons and Kihons were gone, the nervousness gone, all replaced with my main purpose of performing Wunsu to the best of my ability as a white belt who was being promoted to a yellow.

I started the kata confidently, executing my strikes and punches with precision, visualizing my opponent attacking me, forgetting completely that there were people watching me. Snapping my head before I turned, seeing the imaginary attack coming in and responding. When I executed the "tiger turning into the dragon" technique I had paused slightly to show my hand forms, transitioning into the dumping motion of my opponent over my head, doing my spin and step over and finishing my opponent off with a ki (energy yell). Ending the kata with crispness and finality. I was happy, I performed it like I envisioned it. No mistakes.

We also did our self defence techniques, I was only taught the releases for my yellow belt promotion, no locks.

After this was done, Sensei went into his office telling me to take my white belt off, and he came back with my yellow, and had me put it on, giving my husband my white belt to hold on to. So quickly the transition happened that Rob didn't have time to take pictures. My classmates congratulated me and they were asked to work on some self defense. Sensei always gives me a choice in the direction of my training, he said I could pick what I wanted to do next.

Because of my trip to Canada and this being my last class until the holiday season was over, I had thought about what I wanted to learn, because my next step was either Ippons, Kihons, another Kata called Anaku, I thought it would be best to work on my self defense only because I had the foundation of my 5 techniques and we were just adding the locks to the existing ones I had. Sensei was pleasantly surprised I had picked to work on that. After completing the locking techniques to the existing 5 that I had, Sensei told me I had just finished my requirements for blue belt. Just like that. So when I get back after the holidays I will be getting more Ippon, more Kihon, another Kata (Anaku) and some new elements called Taezu Naru Waza. Then I will be ready to transform into a blue belt.