My First Club III

...so off I went to Vancouver. Flew down for the entire week. Stayed in a hotel on Hastings. A friend from Dawson Creek came down later, but he only came for couple of days.

I followed Nakayama from location to location, and trained with Vancouver instructors whenever Nakayama had no sessions on. Was trying to turn into a Black Belt with a bit of concentrated Karate. Mostly I just got sore and stiff.

Test day was at the Downtown Police Gym. An island of tranquility in the toughest part of town. Can't remember anything about the class, just the testing. I assume that Nakayama was at his yoda-style best.

Was well over 50 people testing for Shodan and above. The three test parts were supervised by teams of very high level Karateka. Nakayama sat alone at his table to judge our Kata.

For Kata, we were allowed to choose from a list of nine, but everybody always chose Bassai
Dai. Bassai Dai, next guy, Bassai Dai, next guy, Bassai Day, me....I chose Jion.

When every anybody did their Bassai Dai, Nakayama would only look up during certain parts. The rest of the time he was looking at his papers. When I announced, "Jion", his head came up right away. He watched the entire thing.

Finally, all the hopefuls were lined up, and those that passed had their names called. Then the examiners left without another word. My name had not been called. I had failed.

Big party that night to honour those that passed. I went to celebrate my friend Greg's success.

Dawson Creek now had a Black Belt, but my town still had none.