Hi I’m Tanya. Over the last 6 months I’ve been writing this blog about the journey to black belt and I’m delighted to say that I PASSED! I’m now a Shodan (1st Dan). There were 6 of us from Senshi Karate going for Shodan: 4 passed outright and 2 people passed 2 of the 3 elements, so will retake one element (kata /kumite) in December. Overall there was a 60% pass rate for Shodan. We also had 2 going for Nidan (2nd Dan) and they passed too! Here is my warts-and-all account of the grading – I’ll flag that bit later.
My aim for the week leading up to the grading was to get my head in the right frame of mind and make sure my body was rested, and to a large extent I managed it. I woke up on the day of the grading feeling strangely calm; I’d had a good night’s sleep and felt absolutely no nerves all morning until I put my gi on at the venue. I think my brain had resigned myself to the fact there was nothing I could do now so why worry?
Things I did differently
There are a few practical things that I did differently for this grading following the advice from our instructors and these things genuinely helped:
1) I didn’t drive but I took the train instead. Firstly, I didn’t have to concentrate and stress about the roads and secondly, I could sit and read my book which was a lovely distraction.
2) Spare gi. I bought a new gi about 3 weeks beforehand so I had a one to train in and a fresh one to wear for the actual grading. It’s a really nice feeling to put on a clean, crisp gi – it makes you feel better for sure. (We’ll also touch on the second reason for a spare gi shortly.)
3) Nutrition. Following my fatigue after the mock grading I concentrated on making sure I had plenty of food, snacks and drink with me. Jelly babies were a big success.
So on to the grading itself. The day started with a 1 ½ hour training session with Senseis Georges, Carl and Blyth. They could have taken it easy on us… they didn’t. At one point we were doing squats, jumping squats and fast punching for 30 seconds to “improve our motivation”. It’s compulsory to attend the training before the grading so everyone was in a ‘try hard but not too hard’ mode to conserve energy.
Dealing with my period
At this point, I want to remind this is a warts-and-all account and so I’m going to include everything, particularly for the ladies. If you don’t want to hear about periods, please skip this paragraph if you’d rather. I came on my period the day before which was exceptionally bad timing. I knew it was likely so I did prepare for it. Everyone’s period is different – I rarely have pain but my flow in the first 2 days is very heavy and I often get the sensation that the lower half of my body, from my lower back down to my feet, is detached from the rest of me. Effectively I feel partially numb from the waist down. I still have full function of my legs / hips etc – I just can’t feel them properly. I have trained before with my legs feeling this way so I know it doesn’t affect my performance but it does distract me an awful lot. Before the training session I was experiencing the numbness – those squats plus my nerves compounded them to jelly legs. Quite what proportion of the ‘jelly’ was down to period I’ll never know, but more than a touch. My really big worry however was bleeding through – I use tampons with a pad as backup and was getting through it in 90 minutes rather than usual the 4-8 hours. My solution was literally go to the toilet at every available occasion and hope it was frequent enough. The fact I had a spare gi was a big comfort. One other thing that helped was that I confided in two of my fellow karateka (who turned out to be the ladies that I fought in kumite) how I was feeling. It didn’t change our karate in any way but it was nice to have a bit of solidarity. (I’m sure there’s a whole blog post about karate and periods… for another day!)
Now for the grading itself…
After the training we had just 15 minutes to freshen up, have a quick gi change, eat and drink something and go to the grading dojo. It was a room with karate mats, instead of a solid floor, and mirrors along one wall, a bit like a dance studio. Luckily it had air con! Not what I was expecting at all. They let us have a minute or two on the mats beforehand to try out the surface before we started – I was very grateful for that. There were 10 going for 1st Dan overall – 6 women and 4 men – so they split us in 2 groups. Women were up first.
My legs at this stage were pretty jelly-like and not really attached to me – I do remember lining up for Kihon (basics) not being able to feel them fully. However I was exactly what I wanted to be – a bag of nerves on the inside but consciously exuding confidence and swagger on the outside. The moment we were told our first combination and the instruction to start, autopilot set in. And we were off! The first combo is the one I dislike the most so I knew if I could get through that I could get through the whole lot. For the most part, the grading panel (made up of three 6th & 7th Dans) don’t say much unless it is to pass a specific comment either to an individual or the group. I was pulled up for not thrusting my ushiro-geri (back kick) for long enough as it was very obvious that my gi made the ‘snap’ for the other thrust kicks… just not the ushiro-geri. The downfalls of having a freshly ironed gi! The mats were fine, slightly more spongey than I’m used to, but what was really off-putting was the mirror. I tried to look through it and not look at myself but it’s unnerving. For the entire grading, I don’t think I looked at anyone unless they were speaking to us – not the spectators, not my fellow karateka. I just wanted to focus in the middle distance and zone everyone out – I didn’t want to look at the panel and read anything into it. Kihon passed off okay. I made one large error but styled it out so hopefully the panel didn’t notice. I also kiaied (shouted) an awful lot – at one point the panel told us we could just kiai at the end of the combo, not on every kick. Oh well, better to be over-enthusiastic than underwhelming!
A short rest followed where it was the men’s turn and then we were back up for kata. We did Bassai Dai (our grading kata), Tekki Shodan and they also gave us Heian Sandan as I don’t think they were too happy with our Tekki. At this stage, I remember clocking that I was much more tired at the mock grading so I mentally noted that things were looking up. We were on the home straight… only kumite to go.
Sparring
Following a further rest whilst the men did their kata (Bassai Dai and Heian Nidan), we got our mitts and gumshields on, ready for kumite. I was partnered with Lesley from our club to do our Jiyu-ippon sparring (semi-free announced attacks). It has been months and months of training for this part, and honestly it was over before it had begun. It was SO quick. I had expected lots of feedback but before I knew it they’d asked everyone except myself and Lesley to sit down and the adjudicator came out onto the mats to referee our 3 minutes of free fighting (jiyu kumite). This is where almost anything goes in terms of attacks, combinations and techniques.
Neither myself nor Lesley remember much about the fight. We know we both landed at least couple of attacks each and we made an awful lot of noise. What we lacked in technique we made up for in spirit and kiais! But in all honesty I could not tell you what happened. I knew it had felt positive and I thought I had done enough. I sat back down after the fight… grading done! Mitts and gumshield off, and I sneaked a couple of jelly babies that I had squirreled to the side.
Except it wasn’t. At some point I looked over behind the grading panel to see Sensei Val waving to get someone’s attention. I look to my left, thinking it must be for Leanne (another lady grading for 1st Dan) but Val was not interested in Leanne. She wanted me. She was frantically gesturing for me to put my mitts and gum shields back on and indicating to me that I was going to fight a second time – this time with Leanne. So I had to get my head back in the game quite quickly to do a second fight. If I don’t remember much of my bout with Lesley, I remember even less with Leanne. Again, I think we both managed to land a few attacks each. Those 3 minutes felt like seconds. Which surprised me as I thought it would feel the other way around – I had assumed that we’d be begging to stop but I think I still had a tiny bit more in the tank. The power of jelly babies!
Then it was over
And just like that, it actually was over. We were invited to bow to the table and leave the dojo whilst the next grading – of 1st and 3rd Dans – took place. We had to wait just over 90 minutes to get our results. Again, the panel didn’t say too much in terms of individual feedback unless there was a specific issue; a few of the panel and spectators very kindly came up to me afterwards to say a few private words and I appreciated their comments much more than they realise. At one point, I started to well up a bit but I swallowed it back down. The last 18 months since I’ve restarted my training after a 25-year break have been a ton of hard work but completely worth it, now I’ve earned my Shodan!
Thank you for following my journey to black belt!
Senshi Karate 