Little House In Ise

Shihan moved my test up by a couple months. He moved it up to last night. It wasn’t a total surprise, I had a couple weeks notice. He didn’t say what to expect beyond tanto dori. In the end it was nothing special in terms of techniques called. He called a long, grueling list of basics, tanto tori and then more suwari waza basics (called zagi here).

The comments were things that I’ve heard before. He said that I rushed and it affected my footwork and posture. He said that normally I perform better than I did on the test. I saw the video and think that the test went well. It felt good — I even remember most of it! The one big, “Oops” moment was a matter of degree. I did an irimi nage that I thought was too hard on my uke. On the tape it looked very direct but not too bad. I’m glad that he was a bouncy fellow though!