Cutting tests over

[rawnshah]

After a second move to hurry and find an indoor location--of all things it's been raining in Tucson which is very unusual--we finally had our shodan candidates test cut yesterday. I had to do my sandan test cuts too. We finally got permission to use the Kodenkan dojo, as long as we moved all the mats out of the way, and cleaned up thoroughly afterwards.

We used my new stand, and shihan's old one, so the cutting actually went a little faster, but even then, with just five people, it took us 3 hours to complete it. The good thing is that most people took their time before they cut to center themselves and focus. So we also had some pretty good cutting.

Steve, Andrew and Dusty all passed their cutting tests. They had the standard sequence of kihon-toho and jyu-toho. Monica sempai also cut rokkudan-giri (6-cuts), although not for a test but more to get it on video. I missed the suihei on my very first cut, a full-tsubamegaeshi, so that one didn't work, but then I followed with the tsubamegaesh variation X-cut, which worked. I did another tsubamegaeshi at the end properly and the cut two goza.

Shihan video taped the whole thing so we can show Saruta sensei when he sees him later this month. The rest of the testing for kata, and waza will continue next Sunday alongside during the black belt test sessions with all the other instructors, styles and students.

The kiridai worked out well. We were worried that the 1-peg configuration with the 4" block just sitting on top would spin too much during the cut, but it posed not to be a problem. I may just have had a good day, but the 2goza cutting seemed much easier too. Only one peg was wounded in the making of this video.

-rawn