Wednesday, April 26, 2006
At long last!
Tonight I was promoted to second degree brown belt!
This has been a long time coming, a very long time. Since I got my third degree brown belt (brown belts count down, like the launch of a spacecraft), my old dojo split off from their old style, and started a new teaching system; the branch where my family attended closed; they tried a variety of other places for us to have class, that didn't work and they closed our branch altogether; we hemmed and hawed for a while, then joined another dojo from the style we originally had been learning; that sensei started out by having us go through all the material from white belt on, and getting re-promoted as we went through the material, but that was kind of embarassing because he let us keep our old ranks; so he just had us check off the material as we went but it was still a long process as there are small differences in the material that each dojo taught and small differences are sometimes harder to get into your head than large ones... Between all the other things going on in my life, the other demands on my time, I figure it's been a least four years since I last promoted, maybe longer. (I really can't remember; I've probably got the certificate in the attic, but I'm not going to go look for it!)
Anyway, needless to say, I am in a very happy mood tonight! ¶ 11:28 PM
This has been a long time coming, a very long time. Since I got my third degree brown belt (brown belts count down, like the launch of a spacecraft), my old dojo split off from their old style, and started a new teaching system; the branch where my family attended closed; they tried a variety of other places for us to have class, that didn't work and they closed our branch altogether; we hemmed and hawed for a while, then joined another dojo from the style we originally had been learning; that sensei started out by having us go through all the material from white belt on, and getting re-promoted as we went through the material, but that was kind of embarassing because he let us keep our old ranks; so he just had us check off the material as we went but it was still a long process as there are small differences in the material that each dojo taught and small differences are sometimes harder to get into your head than large ones... Between all the other things going on in my life, the other demands on my time, I figure it's been a least four years since I last promoted, maybe longer. (I really can't remember; I've probably got the certificate in the attic, but I'm not going to go look for it!)
Anyway, needless to say, I am in a very happy mood tonight! ¶ 11:28 PM
