Anatomy of a Brown Belt Test

When I was at my first test, I 'knew' I couldn't do my requirements. The basic fitness everyone has to do. I had the hardest time with push ups and sit ups. I was so worried about not passing. Little did I know then that if you are invited to test, you have already shown that you have what is required to pass the test. The brown belt test is no different in the fact that if you are invited, you already passed. You still have to work hard for it, but Shihan knows that you have what it takes. He doesn't like setting people up for failure.

Kata at Sensei's

Katas are common to almost every Japanese martial art discipline. It literary means form, but we westerner see kata as a choreograph series of movements imitating a fight.

If you stumble across any martial arts message board, you will find a topic about how dumb and boring katas are, especially to a fighter. I was one of those people who wrote seeking an answer about why we did them and couldn't find answers. Not that I hated kata, I didn't mind doing them but I couldn't find the value in the slow dances that we did.