Seitou Ryu Karate
Happy New Year to all of our students across Essex and to all of our fellow karateka friends around the world!
May your 2014 be a prosperous one filled with sweat and progress in the dojo!
Classes reopen on Monday 6th January at South Ockendon dojo, with all other classes reopening as normal throughout the week.
Osu!
From January there will no longer be a charge for 9th kyu (yellow tip) gradings.
The standard test fee of £20 will apply to all students attempting yellow belt and above. For students who are already at 9th kyu and paid a £5 fee, when the time comes to test for yellow belt will only pay £15. All future gradings will be £20.
Also in the New Year we will be introducing an additional format to the grading system for junior students called “Mon” grades.
These will be used as an intermediary marker in conjunction with the current kyu grade belt system from 8th kyu (yellow belt) up to and finishing with 3rd kyu (brown belt) as a way for instructors to monitor the junior students progress more easily and for the students themselves to see where they are in terms of their development more clearly. There will be no charge for the Mon grades.
There are four Mon grades between each kyu grade (each represented by a red tip on the end of the belt) which are awarded to students after a certain number of classes have been completed and that the student has become competent in the relevant part of the syllabus as described below.
Syllabus requirements
From Yellow to Blue Belt
1st Mon – Kihon/Ido Kihon & Combination
2nd Mon – Line Drill
3rd Mon – Kumite Drill
4th Mon – Kata
For Purple belts working towards brown belt
1st Mon – Ido Kihon & Combination
2nd Mon – Line Drill & Kumite Drill
3rd Mon – Kata & Bunkai
4th Mon – Kumite
Number of lessons
As a Yellow Belt (8th kyu)
Mons awarded about every 5 lessons
As an Orange Belt (7th kyu)
Mons awarded about every 8 lessons
From Green – Purple Belt (6th – 4th kyu)
Mons awarded about every 10 lessons
When we come back in the New Year all juniors will be awarded the appropriate Mon grade according to their current number of completed lessons and skill level.
If a student who takes a belt test and is only awarded a provisional pass (“Kyu-Ho” grade), the coloured tip of the previous grade will be placed on the opposite end of the belt to the Mon grades.
When I was 8 or 9, I was getting ready to perform at a piano concert. My piano teacher watched me as I nervously struggled through my piece, making mistake after mistake. And every time I hit a wrong note I would pause momentarily and turn to him displaying a look of horror or apology on my face. Finally, he couldn’t bear watching me suffer any more; ‘move over’ he said. And we swapped chairs.
He played me a beautiful piece of music; he played it loudly, confidently, with expression and passion, swaying as he played. And every now and then he would drop in the most horrendous discord – a huge glaringly obvious mistake that made me cringe.
But, he didn’t change the way he played at all; he carried on as if nothing had happened, in fact if anything he played even more confidently, and by the end I wasn’t reacting at all to the dud notes.
When he finished he turned to me and said; ‘when you make a mistake, always make it with confidence’.
This January I started back at regular karate training after taking about 5 years out to have our two children. I had graded to black belt about 18 months prior to falling pregnant, and had taught the Wickford class until I was 8 months pregnant.
When I returned I had forgotten a lot, I was generally unfit and my body was not the same one I had before. We had made the change from being a split style to solely Goju, and the white and yellow belts were doing katas I had never seen. High grade sparring was suddenly up close and personal with a lot of takedowns and groundwork. And there were past students of mine that were now Shodan, Nidan, and just so damn tall (you know who you are)!
Because you have to fake it ‘till you make it, face the fear, sit in the dark and know you are totally out of your depth and agree with yourself that you are going to make a lot of mistakes, but, you are going to make those mistakes with confidence!
That means that although sparring younger, stronger guys who hit hard frightens the life out of you, you will do it anyway. Although standing up and performing a basic kata that you really don’t know threatens to make you feel so humiliated you just want to curl up in a corner – you do it anyway. Because wearing a black belt while struggling to learn a different set of basics that the yellow belts do very well makes you cringe inside – you do it anyway.
Fake it ‘till you make it is not about arrogance, or pretending you know something when you clearly don’t. It’s about a ‘can do’ attitude, a commitment to your own improvement, a quiet confidence that you can take on anything and you will be able to cope and thrive, and an acceptance that you will make a lot of mistakes along the way.
Do you make sure you are partnered with your friend for kumite because the 6-foot bloke in the blue belt scares the socks off you?
Do you avoid competing in tournaments because performing in front of a crown terrifies you?
Do you constantly chatter during partner work because you are nervous of getting the exercise wrong? Do you profusely apologise every time you do?
Do you shy away from special classes with guest instructors because the subject matter is new, and you may have to train with strangers?
Do you argue with your instructor when he says you’re ready for grading?
Do you pause momentarily and turn to your instructor displaying a look of horror or apology when you make a mistake in kata?
Welcome to the club, you’re in good company. In a couple of weeks a fresh, shiny new year will begin, a lot of folks will set themselves new year’s resolutions, and us karate lot will be setting ourselves some new goals. Maybe ‘Fake it ‘Till you Make It’ should be yours?
Iain Abernethy shared a wonderful comment on Facebook recently, which I will be taking as my resolution for 2014 – ‘Commit To Awesomeness’. You can have that one too if you like.
Osu