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Degrees of relevance...
So, on Saturday, I had the pretest for second degree. I did okay.
There are some areas where I'm not perfect, but they won't cause me to fail the final. One of the more glaring is my stances. Low open stance (aka horse riding stance) and its derivatives are always going to be problematic for me. Putting myself in the proper stance hurts, thanks to those pesky hip joint problems. Getting that low just grinds my hips, and if you haven't had the pleasure of feeling your bones grinding against each other, be very thankful.
Didn't have any problems remembering any of my forms or combinations, but I did manage to mess one up in a minor fashion...closed fist instead of open on one spot in the middle of one, but I did it right the other three times during the same form, so I don't know what was going on with that. It kind of threw me off for a second, but I recovered and moved on.
The part that was the most surprising was sparring. We did five rounds of one on one free sparring, each time with a different partner. There are no winners or losers; both opponents must not let the other overwhelm them. It's a simple demonstration that you are competent to defend yourself. Two on one is where I surprised everyone, including myself (for second degree, we must defend against two, for third, three, etc.). In class, two on one is usually brutal and hard for me. Of course, in class, I'm usually paired with two other black belts, all of which are half a foot taller than I am for the most part (every now and then, one of the two is only four inches taller than I am, yay, but usually they start at 6'1" and only get taller from there). I was paired against two first degree candidates who are about my height. Apparently, I'm pretty good at this after all when I'm not trying to defend against two equally trained partners who also have a considerable reach advantage. I only recall getting hit once with any real impact during the whole thing, and even the glancing blows were pretty few and far between. Side kicks are your friend. Properly done, my 5'7" 170lb. self can stop a 6'1" 260lb attacker dead in his tracks, if not managing to move him backwards. Have to be careful though...they also destroy rib cages if you're not, and we're friends and fellow students, so breaking them isn't on the list of things we're actually trying to do. But during two on one, they're the easiest way to disrupt one of your opponents while you move around to keep the second behind the one you just kicked.
There are some areas where I'm not perfect, but they won't cause me to fail the final. One of the more glaring is my stances. Low open stance (aka horse riding stance) and its derivatives are always going to be problematic for me. Putting myself in the proper stance hurts, thanks to those pesky hip joint problems. Getting that low just grinds my hips, and if you haven't had the pleasure of feeling your bones grinding against each other, be very thankful.
Didn't have any problems remembering any of my forms or combinations, but I did manage to mess one up in a minor fashion...closed fist instead of open on one spot in the middle of one, but I did it right the other three times during the same form, so I don't know what was going on with that. It kind of threw me off for a second, but I recovered and moved on.
The part that was the most surprising was sparring. We did five rounds of one on one free sparring, each time with a different partner. There are no winners or losers; both opponents must not let the other overwhelm them. It's a simple demonstration that you are competent to defend yourself. Two on one is where I surprised everyone, including myself (for second degree, we must defend against two, for third, three, etc.). In class, two on one is usually brutal and hard for me. Of course, in class, I'm usually paired with two other black belts, all of which are half a foot taller than I am for the most part (every now and then, one of the two is only four inches taller than I am, yay, but usually they start at 6'1" and only get taller from there). I was paired against two first degree candidates who are about my height. Apparently, I'm pretty good at this after all when I'm not trying to defend against two equally trained partners who also have a considerable reach advantage. I only recall getting hit once with any real impact during the whole thing, and even the glancing blows were pretty few and far between. Side kicks are your friend. Properly done, my 5'7" 170lb. self can stop a 6'1" 260lb attacker dead in his tracks, if not managing to move him backwards. Have to be careful though...they also destroy rib cages if you're not, and we're friends and fellow students, so breaking them isn't on the list of things we're actually trying to do. But during two on one, they're the easiest way to disrupt one of your opponents while you move around to keep the second behind the one you just kicked.