So the belt promotion has come and gone. It didn't happen without incident, though. The ceremony was held at a dance studio with somewhat dusty floors. During the Saratoga Springs S.T.O.R.M. and S.W.A.T. demonstration, my instructor had a move where he runs to the front with his katana and slices down in mid-air while he comes to a stop. Due to the dusty floors, he didn't exactly come to a complete stop like he was planning and instead, almost did the splits. He recovered ok, so it almost looked like it was on purpose. The rest of the demonstration went well and I didn't notice any other slips.
The next incident happened when the juniors, teens, and adults were doing some kicks on the kicking paddles and the guy in front of me kicked a little too hard when doing a hatchet kick (a forward kick downward with the target of the face). His foot slipped out from under him and he hit the ground pretty hard. Becky then was doing a roundhouse kick and kicked higher than the floor wanted to let her and as a result ended up flat on her front before she realized what had happened. She ended up with a good sized bruise on her chin and left knee as well as her big toe on her left foot. She says she fighting the kicking paddle and the floor snuck up on her and beat her up.
Now that we have our yellow belts, we are now learning a new Kata called Heian Shodan. It's somewhat similar to Taikyoku Shodan, but adds some blocks and the Black Belt stance. The way we are learning it is slightly different again from how I have seen it on YouTube videos. The only real difference is that on the videos a certain move is performed once whereas Bobby Lawrence Karate curiculum has the move twice, once on each direction at the beginning. One of these days I will write out the steps as I am learning them, but I don't have the time to right now. Anyway, I should get back to work.
