Gembatte Day 1

8/9/14

Well it was the first day of Gembatte and the first year that I had missed the Friday and helping out of the weekend.  It was different.  I got there and most everyone was either up or waking up.  We got them all started for the run and waited for them to finish up.  We only had four people testing this year.  Michael and Jim were testing for  black and Mitch and Gordon were going through their test.  They set up the tents after the run and we went through basics.  We had a breakfast then headed back for our seminar.  This year it was Jo and Bokken work.  The jo work was for everyone and the bokken work was for the Senseis.  After that we went into physical fitness.  They did pretty good for having a hot day.  The ten minutes of kiba was interesting for a couple of them.  Then we went into the testing part.  We went through all the throws, defenses, combinations, etc.

From my point of view the test was looking very good.  There were some areas that were a bit rough but it was usually either they hadn't practiced it or we hadn't given a lot of focus to that in class.  Then it came to breaking and everyone did very well.  There were a couple blood spots on boards and a couple that didn't get broken but looked very good.  Then came the time everyone was waiting for, sparring.  We had twenty matches total to get through.  Jim went first and even through he started having some breathing trouble because he was holding his breath he made it through.  Then came Michael and he was able to make it through with his hip being a bit interesting as well.  We talked that night after our great supper about the candidates.  We had decided to give them both their black belts.  Gordon was not going to get any black kyus this year and Mitch would get one.

Today I learned that I still have a lot of my strength  and power from karate  I still have my technique and speed even through I haven't been in class for three months.