Orange

I'm exhausted, sore, and I believe I've got cotton for brains.

It's been an interesting day. I hope I can concentrate enough to write about it.

***

I woke up with a sore knee, which didn't bode well. I wrapped it, and it held up okay throughout the test.

I barely got there in time, as the route I took was slow. There was a wreck, of course.

***

I paired with MO, a good guy, good partner. We reviewed lots of techniques before the test, and lo and behold, there were a couple I'd never done before. Okay, fine. I was there, no backing out now.

As you may recall, even a week ago I hadn't expected to take this test. Yellow belt wasn't that long ago, and I simply thought I'd cruise along at that rank for a while, really absorb the curriculum under the new instructors. But MO asked me to partner with him, and his surprise at my lackadaisical attitude got my attention. Okay, fine, let's knock this mofo out, I decided.

***

If I'd known I was going to take the test, I'd have, say, gone over the test review sheet they'd made available to us. We had a review class too, and yeah, I knew the handful of techniques we went over then. But even then I was thinking that, you know, this review was for everyone else.

***

We reviewed techniques for three hours today, then were tested on our execution of those techniques for an hour. I botched some stuff, did well on other stuff I thought. I've got to get a better handle on a couple choke defenses. After I did one of them I saw my instructor put his head in his hands. Ugh.

I discovered that at about three hours in, my concentration started to fade. I hit a lull where it was a little hard to focus.

And you know, long about then a girl in a way-too-short miniskirt walked down the sidewalk in front of the school, and that didn't help.

***

Nine students were testing, and though I didn't get much chance to check them out, here and there I noticed that we were all screwing some stuff up. I liked the ground we did, thought our strikes were good, aggression wasn't bad...

But when the instructors hit the office to tally our scores, we all sort of knew it wouldn't be good.

***

We passed. Then we got chewed out.

The instructors expected more, and they were very clear about it. We half-assed too much stuff, weren't going all out. I was glad that I'd managed to regain my focus for the last hour.

Each instructor gave me an 80. I believe the highest score I saw was an 85.

Considering that I'd not intended to test as recently as a week ago, and that I'd not seen a couple of the techniques, and that I hadn't even read the review sheet... I can live with that.

***

I'm tired. Good night.