Since September and that Brown Belt that I was so proud of, We have worked extremely hard to be ready for the next belt, Brown Stripe. We have had to learn Bassai, Known as Storming the Fortress. It has about 53 or 54 moves in it, very complicated, with lots of blocks at the beginning, which when done at speed are mind boggling!
We all tried very hard to learn that form and the little one finally got it the week before grading, he knew all the other stuff ok, but the form really was difficult for him. He is now looking forward to the Nianchi, the Bum cha cha cha forms as he calls them, they have a rhythmn that makes sense to him, unlike Bassai. Therefore he is not unhappy about these next forms.
We all did our best and performed as well as we could, turning back kick is not one of my strong points but I hope I made up for it elsewhere. I can see this being a major part of our classes for a little while, as I am sure I was spotted making a mess of it. We did our break today on the boards, as lowly as we are, we had to do our turning back kick and break the board, three goes later, it broke, i was rather relieved. Then onto a hand technique, even though not a requisite for our grading we did the Elbow strike as requested. A little surprised to do but did hopefully correctly. Bong forms as required, I know all the moves so I did all the moves. Free sparring again started to take its toll, my partner always gets in close or I turn into it, it was not harmful in any way but I suppose we should be getting closer now the higher we go.
We all passed and I thoroughly enjoyed it again. We still attended our classes this afternoon, as just passing the grading does not mean you should give up your commitment. The class this afternoon was not as well attended as normal, therefore we got to practice the form for the next grade with a Dan grade, This means we got something very special. its not often that at our grade you get this in class.