The Karate Test

As they say, “Oh, no! Not another learning experience!”

So today Kitten tested for her brown belt. She’s been preparing for a while — not as diligently as she might have, but still cognizant of it and willing to do some practice at home. I wasn’t as diligent as I might have been in mandating it, and she wasn’t as diligent as she ought to have been in making it happen herself.

There are a dozen kids testing in her class. Jim and Ginger are here. The four adults (plus other family members of the testing kids) are all off to one side of the gym at the Lone Tree Rec Center, watching.

Finally, it’s Katherine’s turn. She is the highest ranked in the class. Leads them in exercises, in fact. Lordy, can that girl stretch.

(She only has one more month in this class. In May, because she turns 9, she shifts to the 5:45p class. That’s going to be, I suspect, a small trauma, going from oldest and highest rank to … not.) 

After the other kids have tested, it’s Katherine’s turn. She comes to the line in front of Sensei. Bows. Does her main kata for her rank. And does it pretty darned well.

As she is testing for brown belt (3rd kyu), she has to do another kata. Sensei chooses the third one she learned.

She starts.

She stops.

She’s forgotten the next step.

Sensei prompts her. She continues a couple more moves. She stops. She’s clearly upset. She continues. She stops. Sensei prompts her again.

She finishes stumbling through that kata. But she does finish.

She’s — well, if not in tears, then close to it. Sensei tells her to look up at the ceiling. Clear her mind. Take a deep breath.

He gives her another kata to do, the one she did at her last belt test.

She starts. She gets about halfway through. She stops.

She’s clearly upset, but the expression on her face is angry. I recognize that expression damned well, and how she feels about herself right now. I’ve stopped taking pictures, and am trying to smile reassuringly.

She gets prompted a few more times. She makes her way through the kata, with a few more stumbles.

The next part of the test is kihon, basic moves. Sensei says a few things to her. She nods, gives an Osu in response. She’s ready to continue. He’s been critical of kids that were messing up earlier — but mostly because they weren’t listening. With her he’s firm, but gentle.

The test continues. She does great on the basics. Sensei throws her some difficult combinations. She really does well with them.

Last is kumite, sparring. She goes through it with an orange belt. She’s clearly getting tired, and her moves are not as precise as they should be, but they are still pretty good.

She bows to her sparring partner, bows to Sensei, and trots back to the line.

It’s difficult to figure how she did. Kata is 60% of the “grade.” On the one hand, she did her main kata more than passably well. Not spectactular, but quite respectably. On the other hand, her second kata, and the third, were disastrous. On the third hand, she pushed herself through and got them done, rather than freezing up or running off in tears. On the fourth hand, she’s not a white belt, testing for yellow. She’s testing for brown, which, even with multiple ranks within it, is still the last color before black; she shouldn’t be fumbling like this and expect to pass.

The adults discuss it while she continues in the remainder of class. I weigh in as the resident expert, but I actually have no idea. Did her show of spirit, doing the first kata well, and doing well on the other elements, outweigh her other technical difficulties? What do I want for her, and what do I recognize as appropriate? And are my values here the same as Sensei‘s?

After class, Katherine comes over to where we are sitting. She doesn’t want to sit with us as she puts on her shoes. I go over to her, tell her how proud I am of the good stuff she did, and how proud I am of how she didn’t give up but kept on going. She’s clearly very unhappy with herself and the situation.

By the time we go to dinner at Via Baci, she seems relatively placid. Jim and I went in one car early, while the ladies stayed with Katherine to change her out of her gi. Margie says that Katherine has accepted that she’s failed her test. I want to reassure her that (a) that’s not altogether certain, (b) even if she’s “failed,” I’m still proud of what she did do, and (c) all the stuff we talked about before every test, what it means to not succeed, etc., still holds true. If she has failed, it just means she needs to practice more fr the next test. It doesn’t mean she’s a bad person, or a failure, or that we don’t love her or respect her for working so hard over the last two years.

I repeat a tale that Sensei has told about one of his own black belt degree tests, where he went in, started the test, flubbed the third move, stopped, and was told by the judge, with a gentle smile, Thank you for your test fee, and see you in a year. He passed the next time.

I go to class from the restaurant, as the rest of the folks go home. Sempai Hy, who assists in Katherine’s class, is in my class as a student, and he expresses his sympathy. “She just forgot her kata. She can do it — she just forgot.” He relates a tale of a woman he remembers trying for her 4th Dan black belt who, in her kata alongside other testers, got mixed up, turned left instead of right, then ended up moving in the opposite direction from the rest of the group. Failure, and highly visible. It happens.

(As well I know, not from a test so much as just from practice in class. It’s a rare class I don’t kick myself, figuratively, for being a fumbling idiot.)

Sensei comes up to me, while we’re waiting in the hall for the yoga class to clear out of the dance studio. He’s very sympathetic, especially about how Katherine was feeling and how upset she was with herself. He’s also very impressed by her spirit, and how she finished the katas despite her brain freezes. He relates some tales of students he’s known, including adults, that either completely locked up when they messed up a kata move, or else just ran off the floor.

He repeats how much spirit she showed. “She’s fine,” he says. I don’t know if that means he’s going to pass her, or if he knows that she’ll get past this episode. I don’t ask — it wouldn’t be proper.

Class passes quickly. I have my own share of brain freezes and errors.

If she doesn’t pass, what does it mean? In reality, it just means waiting for another two months, and testing when I (hypothetically) test. Which would be a bit of a shame, as she’s enjoyed being a couple of months ahead of me (I missed a test cycle because of a business trip). 

From an absolute sense, it doesn’t mean a huge amount. Rising in rank isn’t a race. It’s a recognition of what you know and what you can do. If you don’t pass a test, it just means you continue to learn. Which, to be sure, is cold comfort, even for an adult. 

Thomas Edison, asked about his failure (at that point) to find the successful results for a material for light bulb filaments, said, “Results? Why man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know 50,000 things that won’t work.” In a sense, it’s the same with karate. Nobody knows it all. Everyone has more to polish, more to perfect, more to learn.

That’s hard to understand when you’re 8 years old. Heck, it’s hard at 48. 

When I get home from class, I ask how Katherine’s doing. I’m told she’s fine, but there’s a sense that part of it is her putting up a brave front — which strikes me as pretty remarkable. It’s (very much) not that she doesn’t care, but that she’s not crying and wailing and gnashing her teeth about it, no matter how much it hurts.

I go upstairs to tuck her in. I tell her I love her, and how proud I am of her. I tell her about what Sempai Hy said. And I tell her what Sensei told me — how much he respected the spirit she showed, that she pushed her way through, that she didn’t quit. 

And that, I think makes all the difference. In a sense, I think she recognized that our love was unconditional, but she was very much afraid that she’d lost Sensei‘s respect. And hearing that he did respect her … “Thank you, Daddy, for telling me that.” It made a lot of difference. It didn’t cure the sting, but it made it tolerable.

Whether she passes or not, I think she’ll be okay. And it will have been a (positive) learning experience. Which, of course, are rarely pleasant to live through — but which stick to you for a long time.

And I’m still proud of her.