Upcoming Courses & Gradings

At karate we have a system to ensure that everybody has had sufficient training before they do their next grading. We each have a card which is a record of our training and at each session it is stamped. At the lower grades you need 25 stamps to be eligible, 50 stamps for the middle grades and 100 stamps at the higher grades.

When I first joined I started from scratch at white belt but I had got to orange as a teenager so it came back to me quickly. My instructor Garry said I should be able to "fast track" through the first couple of grades to get me back to where I was. Unfortunately that hasn't happened and 9 months on I'm only just eligible for my yellow belt grading.

We were due a grading a month ago but it just didn't happen. In 2 weeks time I'm going to a week long intensive karate course - 5 hours of training a day for 5 days! We get 15 stamps for that lot :-) Rumor has it that on that course you are assessed all the way through and if you have improved a lot by the end of the week you may be graded then. So I was hoping to grade a month ago and then be able to grade again on the course and then last week Garry told me that he wouldn't be holding a grading until after it.

However thats changed now. Last night we had a special class which was kind of like a mock grading. Garry has injured his back so he sat down for the duration of the class and made notes on us all. After class he came up to me and said "you're grading Wednesday". Cool huh! I doubt I'll get to grade again at the course as thats too soon but the 15 stamps will get me a long way towards it.

So today I'm skipping the gym this morning (I shoud be there now heh) and I'll take it easy at lunchtime and I'll take it is easy tomorrow as well. I've had a bit of a sore calf from running recently so I'll lay off that for a couple days so I'm as ready as I can be on Wednesday.