Stepping onto the dojo floor, where I have been learning Ryukyu Kempo karate for two years, prepared to learn more. I became anxious about testing for my first degree purple belt. To test, it is required to go to classes almost everyday. As I walked onto the floor of the dojo, I take a quick glance around at the back of the dojo, where there are weapons, the wooden bo staffs, nunchaku, swords, metal sais, and tonfas, and black belt certificates. I thought to myself, “I hope one day that I will become a black belt and have my name on a certificate like that.”
Sensei, who has made me an instructor only six months prior to testing for my first purple belt, tells the class to line up and stand at attention. The class yelled, “Sir, Yes Sir!” As we lined up and stood at attention, I looked at the belts on display by rank, with three levels each, starting at white, then orange, green, blue, purple, brown, and finally, black belt. I was so amazed as I thought about how I will be only six belts away from getting my black belt after testing. I thought back to when I first tried karate in Lincoln Park and didn’t actually care for it. This has given me a greater appreciation as I realize how much I have learned at this dojo and how far I have come since I had started as a white belt. It was frightening but amazing.
Standing like a soldier at a training camp in the military , Sensei tells the students or “karateka”, “We’re going to start with looking at your Kata.” Our kata is the movements that we use to map out pressure points in the body and to create our techniques (bunkai). Sensei and the other instructors look at everyones kata to see if our movements and stances are correct and if we need to make corrections to the kata for testing. Once everyone practices their kata and after improving on it, each student is tested on what they have learned. For testing we have a certain etiquette involved. I was called up with all other blue belts, and as we walked up to the testing floor, we bowed before we stepped onto the testing floor, then we bowed to the instructors. Sensei says to us, “Let’s see Naihanchi Shodan through Sandan (one to three).” We showed him the kata and he was very impressed with my progress as a student, and was also very impressed with my teaching during warm ups in other classes.
After all of the students tested, we moved on to breaking. Some students who haven’t trained for breaking bricks broke wooden boards. I had trained a for only a small amount of time for breaking and was going to attempt breaking two bricks. Successfully, I had broken them. We moved on to the actual testing, in which we tested our kata and moved into deeper detail with our technique. The class worked on different breaking techniques, like finger-locks, armbars, and also our cross-grab and straight-grab breaks.
Towards the end of testing we did our sparring. The main focus of sparring is to understand what it feels like to actually get hit as if it was out in the real world. We all get prepared by putting on our sparring gear, then grab a partner and spar for about a minute. I remember once when one of the instructors, Mr. Jerry, had knocked my contact out and how we had found it on the wall. This made me understand why I had to keep my guard up during sparring and when we are running our basics in class.
We moved onto a written test that has asks questions about why we do not have blocks in our art or how punches aren’t alway a punch but sometimes a grab. This helped me figure out how different parts of the katas help to defend against different situations that may happen in the future. There are diagrams of skeletons and we must name certain bones of the body that we focus on in the martial arts. This currently helps me with my anatomy class and vice versa.
As testing come to an end, Sensei has all students stand at attention, which is the most important part, it is key, to testing because standing in attention and bowing shows respect to Sensei, the other instructors, students, and helps learn respect for others outside of the dojo. Karate has taught me a lot about respect and how if I respect others, they will respect me in return.Sensei asks the students, while we are in attention, “Name this pressure point and what does it do?” while pointing to the bottom of his thumb on his wrist. Many higher ranking students raise their hands. Sensei chooses me and I say, “That’s Lung-8, and it controls the gripping action of the wrist.”  He moves onto asking about other points and their functions.
Finally, when testing comes to an end everyone is standing at attention, Sensei calls up students by rank, highest to lowest. We step forward and he says to turn around and take off our belts. Then he gives us our next level of belts and we bow to him and the instructors to show our gratitude. He congratulates us and we shake his and the instructors’ hands. I was proud of myself and others for earning our rankings. When we bow out at the end of class I feel like I have taken one more step to becoming a black belt. This journey has given me more confidence in myself as a result of my accomplishments and this has helped me to not be as worried if I need to protect myself or another person if the situation arises.