Nikkyu
I had my first class as a 2nd kyu last night, and it was more or less like classes I’ve had for the past couple months, only with less stress and exertion: Itai will have his own nikkyu test in two months and he gets to be uke until then.
Everyone was pleased to see me and jokingly said that they hadn’t expected me to show up again. Monday’s test was hard. I was exhausted half way through it, with free fighting, multiples and the life knife in the second part of the test. It was a long test, about two hours, with me up a good portion of the time. Grace took the photos up on the left with the Sony; we didn’t have the good camera this time. There’s video, of course, which I have yet to see. I need to see it, since there are parts of the test I have no conscious memory of.
I was apparently nervous and tense enough to be rough on the kata and with the basic demonstrations with grabs and punches. Sensei came over during a break and suggested that I calm down. And breathe: deep breaths, not short hyperventilaty breaths. I think the test started to really fall apart for me during back grabs, with me failing to properly execute the basic popover, which lead to thinking about what I was doing wrong, which lead to more failed technique. The two-man attack — one in front, one grabbing from behind — didn’t work at all, since I wasn’t able to throw the behind attacker into the one in front, and got into wrestling matches with two ukes. I think I got a punch in the eye during this, with uke grabbing me by the lapel and rearing back a haymaker, then waiting for me to try to do something off the lapel grab before deciding that I had enough time; maybe more forceful physical contact would get me out of my paralysis.
After that, I was more or less out of breath for the rest of the test. I did some things well, I’m told, in particular the against-the-wall stuff, and the stick work. I think the wooden knife went relatively well, though, with the more free form segment of knife work, I got “stabbed” on the top of the head a few times. Other parts didn’t go very well, in particular the part where I was on the ground and defending against a stomp from uke.
As expected, the free fighting was totally draining; there wasn’t that much left in the tank by then anyway. Part way through, sensei said that if I could get one throw in against Sensei Coleman, I could sit down. I’m told I did a good throw though I don’t remember it very well. Then sensei reneged, and said again that if I could get in one more throw I could sit down. I don’t think I got that throw in. I got thrown a few times instead, and there was a strong desire just to lie there on the mat. So peaceful. I don’t remember that much more from the free fighting. I know I fought Itai — people tell me I did, and I remember Coleman sitting down and Itai getting up — but I don’t remember anything about that fight. Itai says I threw him around like a rag doll, and other people said it was one of the highlights of my test, but I don’t remember anything about it. Exhaustion had overcome short term memory formation. I have to see the tape to know what happened.
After resting a bit, we did multiples, and there were no disasters from that. I remember multiples a bit better than the free fighting. After that, we did basic techniques against the live knife. Despite having wobbly legs and being clonked a few times in the head, I’m told I was pretty good in that segment, though I remember being told to do a different technique, since I was in a repetitive mode at that point.
This nikkyu test was an endurance match. I’m told that I looked like I wanted to die at the end, and that afterwards I was very pale. The sankyu test is supposed to be harder, with nikkyu a bit easier and technique-y because it’s the same stuff as the sankyu test, and you know more. I think my tests were reversed: sankyu was relatively easy, nikkyu was damn hard, almost stereotypical for a sankyu test. I had broken my bokken during the kenjitsu class the Saturday morning before. Perhaps that was an omen of things to come.
The next day, there weren’t too many bruises, just the usual ones that appear on the forearms. I didn’t get a black eye, just some bruising near the bridge of the nose. My left thigh wasn’t working very well that day, though, after being repeatedly kneed during free fighting, but was fine the day after.
Anyway, it’s over. I can relax a bit after a couple months of heavy training.