well after 4.5 hours of grewelling fights and line work, I've finally (and i mean finally for having trained for about 10 year as a Kyu grade) attained the coveted Shodan black belt rank in Shukokai ****o-Ryu (i'm pleased as punch). That aside i guess i should say how it went down. It was a huge turn out with 60 senior students attending (more for juniors and peewees (under 10's). we had about 10 instructing black belts ranging from Shodan to Rokudan. we did all usual stuff kihon, ido, ippon kumite, kata and bunkai. but the hardest part was the jiyu kumite , two, two point matches and they were harder than the 1 minute continuous rounds we did. so hard. but it was all fine. and i made the grade. i was scared when they left me to last (photos pending). my whole family turned out. So it was a good day.
