Judo Gokyu

I’ve gotten my papers for a judo gokyu test (green belt; there’s no yellow belt). Interesting, there’s a written section where I have to describe the slogans, principles, etc., of Kodokan Judo. Thank god for Google, as the written part is a take home test: the WWW is my textbook.

For Gokyu, I have to demonstrate, in kata quality, the following:

I’m told I should also be prepared to show a couple of yonkyu techniques: a seio-nage (ippon, I’m told) and (because a blue belt was showing this to me during ne-waza last night when I asked what might be on the gokyu test) kamishiho-gatame.

Anyway, I have about a month to prepare. The main trick is the “kata quality” part: the yonkyu throws are all ones we’ve done before (tai-otoshi, uki-goshi, ko-uchi-gari) with great frequency (though the ne-waza techniques are new territory for the most part), as are at least half the sankyu throws for that matter, but probably not with the Kodokan formalism they’re looking for.

Hey, look at that! Judoinfo.com has WMV videos of the throws in the Kodokan syllabus now. This is somewhat clearer than the animated GIFs they had before.

Oh, there’s also an aikido testing date coming up at the beginning of April, but I’ll be out of town for that. I guess I’ll be in aikido for around a year before I get around to testing for 6th Kyu there.

One Response to “Judo Gokyu”

  1. Jessica Says:

    I have been in Judo for 13 years and taught for almost a year now and just wanted to correct a few things. There is a yellow belt; under 17 years old gets white, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, black X 10 and over 17 gets white, yellow, green, brown X 3, black X 10. Also only the ogoshi, osotogari, hesagurama, and deashi barai along with kesagatame and katagatame are needed for the gokyu (yellow belt) test. No kata is required until the dan ranks.