No Surprises

The test is long over, and it went pretty much as expected.

Being old, the biggest difficulty happened when I woke up. My left knee decided to act hard done by, with no hint of a cause.

Parked at the ferry terminal, and caught the first boat. Met up with the other test candidate and our instructor in the cafeteria. We rode together in Shawn’s car.

At the school, we were met by the evaluator and a helper, and got down to work.

Things went on for between and hour-and-a-half, and two hours. There was a lot of technique demonstration, and a bunch of sparring, and some rolling with punching.

Nothing unexpected, and all within reason.

Both of us who were being tested passed, and received our belts and promotion certificates.

By the time we headed for the change room, my knee was making me limp around. It didn’t enjoy the test. I also had a black eye, and my face looked as if a truck had backed over it a few times.

As we left, the womens self-defence class was starting to arrive. I considered returning for the later mixed classes, but felt beat-up and tired enough to abort that idea and head for my bus stop headed home.

By the time I reached my bus transfer stop at Park Royal Mall, things were just starting to open up. I interrupted my travels to celebrate with a pizza at a favourite spot. Limped back to my bus to head home.

I ended up on the 2:20pm boat back home, picked up my car from the parking lot on the other side, and was home just a little after 3pm.

My wife wanted all the details, which I recounted while ensconced comfortably in my lazy boy recliner. This was followed by a shower, and I packed up a clean uniform.

Headed off to train at the local school’s evening classes.

People were very congratulatory, and said nice things about me.

I slept very well.

Merry Maniac

Today, there will be a class at our local Jiu-Jitsu school, and tomorrow there are none. The day after that I go into Vancouver and get evaluated to see if I am good enough to receive a Brown Belt.

That happens early in the morning. If I fail, likely I’d just waddle home straight away in a bit of a funk.

Passing, however, would see my compulsive behaviors kick in. As a brand new Brown Belt, I already be collecting attendance towards adding the first of four possible stripes onto my freshly unwrapped new belt.

With a new belt to wear, I think I’d go for coffee, and then return to attend the Vancouver school’s midday class.

That would put me rushing to get to the ferry terminal to get home in time to train at the Gibsons school in the evening.

The day after that is my normal day to travel into the city to train so I’d be back on the first ferry about an hour before dawn again.

Then both schools shut down to have Christmas breaks. Crazy me will already have 3 classes tallied on his attendance record.

The weird thing is that people are always saying to chase technique, or chase skill, but never to chase rank.

I humbly disagree, but only because they are wrong.

After receiving a promotion right before Christmas most people would take things a little easier. Few would train that very day in the city, and then rush like a crazy person to get home to train again, and then catch the stupidly early ferry again the next morning to train again in the city.

A dedicated person, just might go once, but it would be unlikely that all the rushing about to make it to a second class would hold much appeal, and certainly getting to three would seem like madness.

Doing so for me is a bit of a game. The fastest that it is permitted to earn a belt stripe is 8 months. There are no exceptions.

In that time, it is necessary to have attended 90 or more appropriate advanced sessions ( the actual goal is for 100, but ten of these are so easy to collect that I don’t even bother thinking about them at all).

With the amount that I travel, there is no way I can finish the attendance in 8 months if I train like a normal person. Assuming I can manage absolutely perfect attendance (never sick, nor injured, and no conflicts of any kind) whenever I’m home, I will only have managed 67 classes by the time that warm August day has rolled along.

Collecting 90 classes would take me 11 months and 2 weeks. That sounds like a year to me.

However, I go into the city to train every Saturday. Doing this means that my attendance goal will be reached in exactly 8 months.

But I don’t leave it at that.

On one of our yearly big trips, we usually head out two weeks early, and stop off in LA so that I can train at Gracie University. Putting that trip into the mix, I lose classes at my home school for two weeks, and two Saturdays in Vancouver, but train a ton in LA.

Doing this means that my tally goal will actually be reached 6 weeks before the due date.

But even that isn’t enough. Rob and I will be working on BBS exams, which will require tons of extra mat work. I also run a Sunday session, and work with anybody during open mat time on anything. Factoring these shows my tally growing at an alarming rate.

About half of these sessions end up as nothing, or at least nothing that I can credit myself for. Even so, they make it so that my tally total will be finished easily 3 months before the due date.

If I train after getting promoted in a couple of days, and before the Christmas shutdown it will change all of the potential tally completion dates by one week in my favour.

There is a direct correlation between the amount of training somebody does, and how good they are, and how much they improve over time.

I like getting my tallies up as a form of motivation, and the rank promotion system directly feeds into this. I am either improving by chasing rank, or I am earning rank by chasing improvement.

The point to all this jibber-jaber is to explain why I will be on the mat between the time of my Brown Belt exam and the schools shutting downs shortly after.

If it was really just me chasing the tallies, I would stop after attaining the goal, or at least cut back a lot. I do that, but continue on at my merry, maniac pace.

Also, if I train straight away after a getting a new belt, everybody will get to admire it.

One Week Left

Today it’s Saturday, and there is precisely one week left until the scheduled day for my Brown Belt evaluation.

There is still some question as to the precise day that it will happen, but the paperwork went in naming Saturday; four days before Christmas.

It may happen on Saturday, but there seems to be some question about that. The evaluator has some reason for moving it by a day or two.

That is fine with me, but only if it is moved up, and not further away.

Helen and I always go to spend Christmas with family in Victoria, and we are committed to going over the day after the scheduled Saturday test date. That is already a couple of days later than we’d usually go, and we committed to it back when my test was first being set up, two months ago. No going back on that now.

Earlier is not an issue, at least on my end. It is always hard to coordinate a bunch of people getting together to do anything. Just try and pick a restaurant with a bunch of buddies.

The time has to fit me, and the other guy being tested, and our instructor, and the evaluator, and a couple of extra bodies to act as our bad guys. That would be at least 6 people.

If it simply cannot be done on or before the designated Saturday, then my part at least would have to be put off until sometime in January.

I don’t really think that it will be, but it is a possibility.

Anyhow, all of the preparation will soon be over. When that happens, Rob and I will jump back into the technical exams in a big way, and there will be other projects and interesting topics to be found and explored.

A pass means that for the next four levels, I can expect to progress every 8 months or so. Perhaps more slowly if some kind of injury pops up.

That would give me 32 month of stability.

The next stressful rank would come after that, and it would be the big one; for a Black Belt. The soonest I can achieve the rank before that would be something like the late summer of 2022.

Back belt exams only happen in Los Angeles at the main Gracie University school in December, and the invitations for that go out the prior January or February. So a ranker finishing in the late summer of 2022, would be followed by an invitation to Los Angeles being issued early in 2023, for a gruelling exam just before Christmas.

That all still seems pretty far away, and quite theoretical. The point is that there will be plenty of time for technical exams, helping beginners, and attending classes. It will be nice to get back to all that again.