Kenpou: Grading test for 1kyuu

1kyuu kata

1kyuu kata

Nice punch

It can get pretty rough

070422, Sunday

Early in the morning the Waseda kenpou fighters gathered at Meiji Daigaku at Ocha no Mizu in Tokyo. We went here for the same reason as before; to try to get graded to a higher level. At the last test, in December, I managed to get graded from muukyuu to 2kyuu and my task for today was to try to get 1kyuu. In the morning kata was performed. The 1kyuu kata is done with a partner. The judges were rather firm and were not late to express their discontent. Then it was my turn. I performed the kata together with another Waseda kenpou fighter. He is very good at kata so I could not have had a better partner. Thankfully it went well and all the judges said was: "It was good". Great! Having done the kata I could relax a bit while watching the others perform. After having had a light lunch it was time for the fights! Like before you have to score as many points as possible during three minutes. Three minutes might not seem like a long time...but trust me, it is. Last time my uncle came to see me fight and today he came again to support me. Along with him came my aunt & her husband, my cousin and his family and a teacher that I had last semester. Since they had come all the way to cheer for me I really wanted to do my best to give them a good show. Nevertheless, to my big disappointment I lost my first fight :( Maybe I was too nervous this time and could not really focus? Anyway, I lost. Waiting for a couple of minutes for my next fight I knew I had to shape up! I managed to focus and won the second fight. My friends had told me that it was enough to win one fight to pass. However, I was not satisfied at all with my fights. Although I won one fight I was not sure if I would pass or not. I thought that I would not. This made me really sad and I could not hold back the tears :( Fortunately I passed! Hence, I was able to get 1kyuu :) What a big relief! The Waseda fighters performed well today! A girl got 3kyuu, 2 guys got shodan and a girl and a guy got 2dan :) Great!