Well that was Simple

Had my first class as a purple belt last night. Sensei took me aside for over 20 minutes and taught me Simple Sai - the first of the required new katas for my brown-belt test. It's aptly named. I have the moves down in my brain pretty clearly today, and can do them well enough to be certain of what I'm trying to do, even if my sai work is pretty pathetic still. So now it's a matter of getting smooth and strong with the weapon, rather than learning the kata itself.

I'm the first person in class to learn the kata, for the straightforward reason that I'm the only one with my own sais thus far. Rob got me a complete set of Isshinryu weaponry (except for a bo, which I already had) for my birthday last year. This year I'm just getting the book on speed and a new gi - well those and a purple belt, but I don't think Sensei remembers when my birthday is, so I doubt that was deliberate. It feels good to get the sais out and really start using them at last. Now I just have to stop stabbing myself in the forearm when doing a swooping close.

Solid

My test Friday went fine, and I'm now a bonafide purple belt (san-kyu). Sensei asked me after the test, but before the award of the belt, how I thought I'd done. I answered "Solidly," and he said that was an accurrate description. I didn't miss anything, I didn't make any significant errors, no brain farts, or anything like that.

Unfortunately, "Solid" would also be a good description of what I did wrong. My techniques are good and I have the knowledge I need, but I'm completely lacking in zip. In kumite I'm forever seeing the opening a split second too late to do anything about it - or the technique gets launched, but doesn't get there in time. The only technique I throw with enough pop to surprise anyone is my front-snap kick. I can absolutely pile-drive anybody with my side-thrust - but it's almost invariably too slow to get through. Even my katas show the effects - my husband commented that they looked strong but leaden. The only place it didn't seem to affect me was in self-defense (Ironically the area I was most worried about, but where I did best.) I opted to do the four pre-planned self-defense sequences, and they were smooth, fast and confidant - Sensei had nothing critical to say at all, which is pretty unusual.

I talked to my Dad about this, and he was unsurprised. He mentioned that in his gymnastic days (he was nationally ranked in college), his biggest downfall was a lack of explosive power, which he attributes to a lack of fast-twitch muscle. Now everybody has some fast-twitch and some slow-twitch muscle, but someone with a lot of fast-twitch is going to find it easy to do explosive techniques and be generally quick while having problems with endurance, while somebody with lots of slow-twitch is going to have the opposite - an easy time with endurance work, and difficulties with speed.

So, taking it as a given that I'm going to have to work hard to get decent speed, the question becomes - what do I work hard at? I've ordered a book on speed-training in martial arts, and I'm poking around on the web to see what I can find. I've got some time at least. We have a six-month minimum time-in-rank for purple, so it's at least October before I'm even eligeable to test for brown, and probably more like December or next January. Now I just need to figure out how to train between now and then. The knowledge is easy, and there are only two required new katas (Simple Sai and Chinto), plus I'll probably ask for Tokomine No Kun, just to have something new to work on with bo (I've known Tsu Yoi Bo since orange), so that's not a problem. It's just the dratted speed thing.

Suggestions more than welcome!

K goes Purple

Congratulations to K, who passed her purple belt (san-kyu) test this last Friday.

She did great, though she was so nervous I was wondering if we had any Valium around, which surprises me. I've seen K do her prior tests and while she's usually nervous, this is the first time I was really worried it was going to screw her up. It did once - on her first kata (Seisan), she forgot a turn and ended up facing the wrong way 'round. She's known that kata for about three years now, and I've never seen her make a major mistake in it before. After that she managed to settle down and concentrate better though - which is good, because you're only allowed one major mistake in kata. Sensei scolded her for stopping and restarting the kata because that automatically counts as a major mistake. If she had continued all the way through, then it would be up to his discretion as to whether to count the missed turn as major or minor.

Her test did serve to make me pretty confidant for mine on Friday, though. He didn't ask her for anything I'm not sure of, and I'm a lot more experienced in bo (her weakest point) than she is, being specifically interested in weapons. Unless I have a serious performance screw-up, I shouldn't have a problem.

My specific weak points are all things Sensei will start ragging on me for after the test, rather than before. I'm too slow. I don't put enough power behind my strikes, specifically in kata. I overthink in kumite. And something he only started commenting on in the last month, I don't use my hands for attack in kumite - which I'm finding amusing. A year ago, I was being scolded for being primarily a boxer, and not using my feet, so I started concentrating on my kicks. Apparently I've been successful to the point where my hands are now seriously lagging. Plus I tend to underestimate my reach with tsuki waza (hand/punching techniques). I know how far my kicks reach, but I seem to think my arms are about six inches shorter than they actually are.

So - lots of stuff to work on for brown, but I'm ready for purple - as long as I don't get so nervous I screw up.

Respect & Denial

This summer we had a new guy come to two classes at the dojo. He was only really new to being on the floor, since he was the father of two of our students and watched class regularly. While he seemed to enjoy class, he ended up dropping out after those two classes for one very specific reason: he couldn't bring himself to hit a woman.

This isn't the first time I've run into a guy that feels this way and it always bothers me. That it bothers me seems to puzzle the guys, since they view it as symptomatic of their deep respect for women. They would never hit any woman, under any circumstances, and that's good, isn't it?

Except that it doesn't seem very respectful to me. It's a blanket rule. One that covers all circumstances for all time, even when the rule is detrimental to the ones it's supposed to show respect for. That Mr. P doesn't go about hitting women as a general rule is good, but to specifically refuse to hit women in an enviroment where the women are learning to protect themselves from people who do hit women, doesn't respect women that I can see. It's refusing to help women become more capable. It seems to go hand in hand with the fact that Mrs. P would never remotely consider joining our class, not even for the one-off self-defense class, nor do I think her spouse would approve of her doing so. Protecting Mrs. P is Mr. P's job; she's not supposed to protect herself. And that hardly seems respectful of Mrs. P's abilities, does it?

It's New! It's Yellow! It's a Belt!

Robbie passed his test today! After a few heart-stopping moments, he made it through, and is now a brand-spanking new yellow belt. Rob took some pictures, but hasn't downloaded them yet. If he does, I'll edit and add them to the post.

He did great on his katas. No missed steps, lots of power, and a much better Seisan stance than he had even a few weeks ago. He needs to lower his targeting (It looked like he was fighting someone two feet taller than him.), stop cocking his wrist, and bring his off hand back to his belt after his strike, but other than that, they looked really good.

The heart-stoppers came with matters of etiquette rather than with the test itself. He couldn't manage to hold still while his compatriot tested for her orange belt, he kept bopping around by the window. He couldn't keep quiet when Sensei would make a comment - he had to argue every point (like saying he could see with peripheral vision when Sensei asked him to look where he was kicking). Plus, he called Sensei by his first name once during the test - oops! Sensei had to speak pretty sternly to him about three times during the test to get him back on track. I feel a little guilty about the first name thing. I call Sensei by his first name (by his request) everywhere but in class, and Robbie's picked it up from me.

I was so damned nervous during this test. I don't expect I'll be half that tense at my own test - after all, I can control my behavior. All I could do during Robbie's test was a combination of significant looks, and attempting to develop telepathy through sheer willpower.

Testing

Sensei handed out a bunch of test dates this week. This coming Friday Robbie will be testing for his yellow belt at long last! It's taken him about two years to get this far. It's been terribly frustrating. He's known his stuff for ages (or to quote Sensei "It's never been a matter of what's in his head."), but because his brain knows it, he thinks he doesn't need to practice the same things over and over. His taikyokos (beginner katas) took forever for him to do decently, because his head knew them, but his body didn't, and he would stop after every single move to ponder what came next. Once he got beyond that point, he still wasn't ready, because he wasn't taking the need to concentrate seriously and would switch katas in the middle, or suddenly stop and do something completely different.

One advantage to all this time though is that he knows the patterns cold, even if his execution is still a bit sloppy. On Thursday he ran through Taikyoko 2 with three other kids and turned the wrong way on his first turn (a pretty typical Robbie spaceout as far as we could tell). What had the other students watching with their jaws hanging was that he then (with a faintly puzzled look on his face the whole time) proceeded to do the whole thing perfectly only mirrored right to left. In fact he did it better than usual - possibly because he was having to concentrate not to lose his place. When I talked to him afterwards he hadn't realized he was flipped, just that something felt odd. I told Sensei I'd work him at home to make sure it didn't happen during the test, but Sensei felt (as did I) that this was a pretty good demonstration of how well he knows the kata now.

After Robbie (and one of our child yellow belts) test on Friday, K, our resident doctor and the secondmost senior student is testing a couple of weeks later. Then I test two weeks after her (March 30). We're both up for san-kyu which is purple in our dojo. I'm a bit relieved that K is going first. She's been a green since 2005, while I only tested this summer. I know that barring some drastic change in circumstances I'll be testing for brown before she does - with three kids and being a full-time doctor practice time is short for her - but I feel better doing it for brown, when we'll be close in seniority in purple, rather than testing first at this rank. I'm also glad we're getting more people in purple. Our only san-kyu thus far (K's oldest) was, in my opinion, promoted just a touch early - at that point when he knew his stuff, but it wasn't completely secure yet. Adding in all the new stuff for purple has weakened his grasp on the material for green, and it's showing in a new sense of insecurity on the floor. He's quite hyper-aware that he's the senior student; he wants to live up to his rank. I'm hoping that having others of his rank about will let him loosen up a bit and regain his security.

I'm feeling pretty good about where I stand on the material for the test. My katas are solid, including Tsu Yoi Bo (Power Bo), which is the first weapons kata we learn, and I know the language material cold. My only concern on self-defense is the possibility of blanking on ideas, but I'm probably going to choose those about a week before to make as sure as possible that it doesn't happen. I'll have to chose a couple of sets though to make sure of no repeat from the last test. Only one person (other than Sensei) showed up, and my favorite self-defense moves from a bear hug couldn't be used because my "attacker" was about half my size, and couldn't actually wrap his arms around me. I could conceivably use the preset moves that we're learning for black belt - there are nine in all; we've been taught three. Sensei has said they're acceptable choices, but honestly I'm only really comfortable with one thus far. Eh - I'll come up with something. I only have to do three releases, and I know about a dozen. It's more the open-endedness that bothers me.

ISTEP Results and Related Rambling

We just got back Robbie's results on the ISTEP exams (Indiana State Testing...something or another). It's a state-wide mandatory test that they administer starting in the third grade, so this was his first year. Robbie did really well. We're tickled, his teachers are tickled, he's tickled. Good stuff.

ISTEP comes in two parts, Math and Language. Each part is then broken down into six areas, which are tested separately. The whole process takes a week.

In language he pretty much kicked butt - except for the Writing Applications seciton. Writing Applications gives the kids a writing prompt (The best day of my life was..., or something similar), and they have thirty minutes to write an essay based on the prompt. Anybody who deals with Robbie much knows this is asking for trouble. The kid writes like a house afire on his own ideas, but blanks easily when asked to write about things he's not personally interested in. According to his teacher Robbie wrote nothing for the first 20-25 minutes, until she tapped him on the shoulder and hissed "Robbie! You're going to get a zero!" Whereupon he started scribbling madly. He scored a 79 (state average 69) on the strength of those ten minutes, but it's still a noticeable dip from his other scores, which ranged from 94 to 97. His overall Language score puts him four points below a Pass+, and over 100 points above a passing score. Nothing to sneeze at. Plus (Bonus!), the low essay score bothers him, and he's starting to work a little harder on being able to write to prompts.

Language may have been good, but he blew the roof off the test in Math. His lowest score (Problem Solving) was 92 (state average 57), and he scored 99 in four out of the six sections. Not only a Pass+, but way up at the top of the scale - a full 176 points above a passing score.

Needless to say his parents and grandparents are proud as peacocks about this. Makes me want to take his scores and mail them off to his kindergarten teacher, who kept telling the poor kid how bad he was. She would never believe that he misbehaved in her classroom because he was bored. Not even when we showed her he understood fractions (yes, in kindergarten), or when she gave him a picture book and he wrote in the story because a book with pictures and no words was just wrong. It was all because he was an unmanageable, probably ADHD child that we should go have treated for his problems. Funny how all the problems went away when we pulled him out of kindergarten and never came back. Iincluding the chronic stomach pains that started up about six weeks into school.

Three years later, and in a different school (Hallelujah!), we have teachers who understand that a bright child can be immature, and this mitigates neither his need to be challenged, nor his need to be met at his own level of social maturity. And I have teachers that I can talk to about Robbie being gifted without getting down-the-nose looks, where you can see the thoughts behind them. "Oh another one of those mothers, they all think their child is just so special." Usually followed by a concerted effort to prove to me (and my child) that he really isn't all that.

I could forgive his kindergarten teacher for being snotty to me. I will never forgive her for making Robbie's kindergarten experience so toxic. She's truly the only person I know that I've ever wanted to just slap across the face. I am unbelievably relieved to have Robbie (and Aaron) in a school that doesn't ignore them because they're inconvenient. I can't imagine what this year would have been like if we still lived there. I don't have the skills to give Aaron the extra help he needs (he gets speech and PT help in school), but I would rot in Hell before I would put another child of mine in that kindergarten.

Umm - well that was more of a rant then I intended. Shall we shorten it to - Robbie is finally somewhere where he is blooming, and we couldn't be happier about it.