more stuff from the training log. i passed my 4th kyu test in aikido! this is something i’ve been working toward really for the entire past year, ever since testing for 5th kyu in april last year, but for the past two months i’ve been very focused on it and logging a lot of hours on the mat.

i passed! by the time i got to the end of the review week, i was no longer really worried about passing. i definitely didn’t have a perfect test, by any means, but i felt good and focused throughout.

so the 5th kyu test was first, and i sat through all of that, trying to make sure my legs didn’t falling asleep in seiza. when the 5th kyu test was ending i could feel my heart starting to pound, fight-or-flight instinct kicking in a surge of adrenaline, and i tried to summon calm and focus, breathing through it. then Sensei got that cheshire cat-like grin on his face and said, “we’re going to try an experiment.” what? as experiment? now? shit! he placed two sheets of paper in front of him, and said, “in xx other dojo…” and for a moment i thought what he was about to do was test me on some other dojo’s test requirements. then he went on, “…they conduct different level tests simultaneously.” so he called both me for 4th and tom for 3rd up at the same time, and conducted our tests simultaneously. which was chaotic at times, but otherwise worked just fine. a couple of times where the stages of our tests didn’t line up, he’d call for one of us to sit down. which actually meant that i got a 3-4 minute rest twice during my test! which, though it was nice, i didn’t really need. the endurance training i’ve been doing all spring came through for me, and though i was breathing hard and sweating, i never felt exhausted, never felt like my form and focus were suffering for exhaustion, something which i often see on other students’ faces at the end of tests.

my weapons work was not great, nerves and a serious case of sweaty palms (it was at the end of the test, in a warm room and i was a sweat monster at that point) made the jo stick to my hand and not run smoothly, and it showed up my lack of basic training. also i had been working on getting the correct knee down during ura and omote sankyo pins, and on friday Enmei had showed me i was using the wrong knee in both cases, and once i tried to fix them both i got them so tangled in my head that i could no longer remember which was which. and it seemed like i did a LOT of sankyo. he called sankyo for practically every attack on the test requirements. the other thing that really tripped me up was in opening taisabaki, Sensei called for ai hanmi katatedori ushiro tenkan. what? ushiro tenkan? that was definitely not on the test requirements. so i struggled with that one, my brain trying to parse the japanese, backwards and turning, backwards and turning, and with some recommendations from sensei i fumbled through it and he assigned it to me as “homework.” not the most brilliant start to the test, but i recovered. i f’d up the ura version of ushiro ryotedori ikkyo the first time, turning it into sankyo somehow, but the second time i got it right. and, most importantly, i didn’t freeze up over kokyunage. i biffed one attack, but otherwise the kokyunage went pretty smoothly. and i did a pretty good job of remembering to show variations before i was asked. i’ll get more specific feedback from the instructors and yudansha over the next week or so.

i’m most pleased with my endurance, and with my focus. i was almost completely unaware of the other students on the mat, it was just me, uke, and Sensei’s voice barking commands or corrections.

and i really feel so much more competent having done the work for this test preparation. i’ve made more connections in my head between attack, taisabaki, and technique. i have a long way to go, but i can see the glimmer of those connections much better now than i could two months ago. i’m also really really sad about leaving this dojo community. i will certainly benefit from broadening my training into other dojos and styles, of course. but i heart the people here. funny, that i can write “i heart” with regards to people who routinely inflict pain, isn’t it?

friday night i posted something on my facebook status page regarding the test, and someone commented, “you’re a martial artist?” and it made me kind of feel awesome to be able to say, well, yeah. i am. i’ve accomplished something here. i am different than i was two and a half years ago. in many ways, of course, but this is one of the significant ones.