Thursday Test Day

TKD-was decent, we did a bunch of different warm up stuff to work the core. It was flippin' hard. I felt like we were in yoga or something which I would probably benefit from. We then worked on kicking drills and basic sparring drills. I bowed out early to review for my DZR test.

DZR-I will never, I repeat NEVER test sick again. My breathing was off so bad I couldn't catch my breath at all. Sensei had to remind me to relax because I was having so much trouble breathing. I was exhausted before the test even started and though I stumbled through a couple of my techniques, I passed. We will do the belt ceremony next week so I have an extra few days to practice tying my belt without it touching the ground. It's a neat way to do a belting actually. In aikido, Sensei would just put your belt you. In DZR, we are in seiza in front of Sensei, he hands you the belt which you have to open with a kiai, then hand it back to him. You then bow before him and he beats you (softly) with the belt to symbolize being beaten into submission, then he hands it back to you and you have to put it on without letting it touch the ground, lest you get thrown as many times as he desires and all the other students get to throw you too. I like the ceremonial Japanese stuff. It's cool. After the test we went over more new stuff. I learned the rest of the yawara list. It's gonna take some work, but I'm excited. It's not going to be as easy to get to my 2nd Blue.