Of course, I knew she would. Last night was the last day of Kato Sensei’s most recent seminar at my dojo. As is normal for his visitis we had a group of students ready to take black belt rank tests. There were three shodan (first degree), three nidan (second degree), five sandan (third degree), and one yondan (fourth degree) tests. Busy night! There were also two godan (fifth degree) demonstrations by two of the teachers who got promoted this year. My wife was one of the sandan tests and she was amazing!
I had the honor of being her uke for the test. That means that I trained with her for several months before the test and took most of the falls during her test. It was great! The head of our school, James Friedman, wanted to see intensity during the exams, and judging by how my body feels today, the look on my wife’s face last night, and the reactions from the capacity crowd we had (this time we even had to have some of the friends and family members sit on the mat!) my honey pulled it off. One of the highpoints was during the three person attack at the end of the test. I was one of the three. Her last technique was a straight extension to my face. I took a good fall, and she followed through. Bounced my head right off the matt! My head hasn’t hit the matt during a fall in seven years! It was AWESOME!
