Roo! An Aiki sho-dan

Sunday was....how do I put it? Hell. Yep, it was Hell. But for hte first time ever, we actually started on time. Foobar's test was a lot shorter than I thought it would be, primarily because he's so small, he only had a 3 uke line. So things flew. Thank God he knew his vocab, but I don't put any faith in him remembering anything or staying long enough for ni-dan.

The baby ni-dan tests.....I seriously might kill them all. Wheezy Kid STILL can't do a back fall, Lurch kicked a kid in the face (and can't roll out of throws), and Frankenstein still wrestles instead of using...I dunno ANYTHING we taught him to do. I can't stand them, and hope they all quit. Soon.

My karate ni-dan test was much longer than I thought it would be, and I didn't get any comments about it. I dunno if that's good or not. Goth kid tested for ni-dan, and that was pretty uneventful.And then my aiki test came about. It was long, tiring, painful, etc. It wasn't the big fanfare that I was hoping, and I was rather discouraged when most of my critiques came out of things that were Head Sensei's fault. Stupid bobbles in reishiki, etc. It all seemed to stem from the fact that every other school that teaches aiki does so 3x a week, while we teach 2 1/2hours a week total. Shit.

So pooped.

The non-stop rain has made it impossible to get outside to practice, so I have been doing whatever kata I can fit in a tiny enclosed space. My main conern this weekend is my aiki test and keeping healthy. I hurt my toes doing my idori- probably because I didn't warm them up properly.So I have to be really vigilant about what I do with the balls of my feet. Stupid toes.

I did make this belt rack (finally) that I have been meaning to do for 6 years now. It's alright.

Pit Bulls are not vicious creatures :)

So a lot has happened since my last entry. We finally got the the testing situations straightened out, and we are all testing next Sunday. This is gonna suck. But some good things happened too. While I was practicing my aiki and my physics face (>:p) this month, a lot of people started flooding the dojo. Ah, the mid-September rush.This means lots of new meat,er, ukes. A lot of people got ranked too. Goth Kid got ranked in aiki and karate, the older two Pitbulls got ranked aiki,  another one (the one who called me Stitch) in aiki, Snotball and Snotshadow got ranked in karate (although I stress that Snotshadow got it first) and Lil' Stein somehow managed to thwart Darwin and get his green belt.

So yes, lots of promotions. And for me, I think this next weekend will be my last with the school. My grades as of late are suffering, and so is my body. Taking three arts is fun , but not very smart for somebody whose body falls apart at a whim. If and when I move to chiro. school (again, this time out of state) I will let my martial arts take the brunt of my lack of time management skills and only study one for maybe twice a week for the couple of years I am in school.

Enough of that. Here is (how we think) next Sunday is going to go:

1. Foobar's baby sho-dan test
2. Frankenstein, Wheezy Kid, and Lurch test for baby ni-dan
3. My ni-dan test for karate (the adult version, dammit!)
   
4. (hopefully) some lunch
5. Goth Kid's ni-dan test
6. My aiki sho-dan test

So Yeah, long day. I am projecting I won't be getting over until maybe 8 o'clock. Head Honcho sensei is nuts.