Karate promotion exam over!

Just had the promotion exam... not too bad.. made a small mistake during the kata.. :( but overall I think I should be able to 'promote' from white belt to purple belt.. :)

Went to the Multi-purpose hall around 7:45pm to practice.. It's different when you do it in a small place (like my room) and the actual location.. Was more worried about the sets of moves before the kata, cos I wasn't very sure which comes first and also the names of those moves.. Luckily, Sensei and one Senpai was there to guide..

There were 11 people taking the promotion exams, with 5 of us white belts and 6 purple belts.. The Grandmaster and Founder of Seidokai (成道会）, Mr Narikawa came around 9pm to conduct the test.. We had been practicing hard before that.. last minute kinda stuff.. where to stand, what to do between the sets of moves and kata, etc..

The 5 of us were divided into 2 groups, 3 and 2... I was in the group of two which was not the first group to do the exam.. How the first group of 3 performed didn't affect me much, cos in my mind, I've already accepted the worst case scenario.. Whenever I am faced with a challenge/obstacle/exam/whatever, I will always ask myself this question, "What is the worst that could happened?". In this case, the worst is not being promoted from white belt, which I have already know and accepted, if it really do happen.. So when it was my turn, I just blocked out all other thoughts and just do it! It was not as terrifying as I thought it would be.. The Senpai who was doing the counting hinted to us before the start of each sets of moves.. So it was just a matter of doing the moves correctly, instead of worrying about what moves was being asked of us..

In the end, I think I did enough to be eligible for promotion from white belt.. :) Hopefully I am right.. I will know about it next week.. so stay tuned next week for the result of my karate promotion exam!! ;)

For those who are curious about the 'branch/school' of karate that I am learning, this is the web site.. http://www.seidokai.com It is based on Gensei-ryu (玄制流) which is a karate style with roots in Shuri-te (首里手), one of the three original karate styles on Okinawa (a Japanese island).