Green belt!

I am now a green belt in Matabashi Ryu Karate!

It's been a day.  A rainy day.  I'm drunk as I type this, so any spelling mistakes... who cares?

Anyway, got myself booked in to the blind masseuse pace across the road from Jahanna Kippan.  In Japan, if you're blind, the general expectation is for you to become a masseuse, it's just what you should do, it seems. And across from the Jahanna Kippan shop is a blind masseuse hospital thing. An hour for 2500 Yen, so an hour for about £20.  Not a massage like in the UK, which tends towards long stroking motions, the massage here was more a series of prods and rubs, different and very good.  I came out of there

a) really relaxed

b) a little taller

And cheap for an hour.

From there it was dinner and then on to the grading.

I've experienced jujitsu gradings, both Ishin Ryu, Fudoshin and BJJ (BJJ's grading being, "you're good enough for this level, here you are" some part of me likes this style and, if anything, it's truer to the original Japanese method than anything).  This was... different.

There were kids being graded, and adults.  Arakaki Sensei presided along with 4 other black belts.  I did my basics and my kata, as did everyone else and then the black belts came forward to state what they thought.  Each had a mark sheet and each was scoring out of 10.

I got 3 8.5's and an 8, which is good.  James managed to score a 10, lucky bastard.  Well, skilful bastard.  Several of the grading panel commented on how quickly I had learnt the kata, which was nice.  A very open system, this grading style, with each justifying their mark and commenting on how things could be improved.  Having been there at gradings where there seemed to be some unfairness... this seemed a system designed to eliminate any impartiality.

Afterwards we went upstairs to Arakaki Sensei's house and ate food and got drunk.  It was a good night, people were impressed with my knowledge of Okinawan history.

I managed to borrow some books from Arakaki Sensei (knowledge whore that I am) so that'll be more knowledge for the pile.

As we left Arakaki Sensei told us that there would be no class on Tuesday as that was the Remembrance Day for his dead son, which is sad.  Coincidentally, I told James about Sam today.  It was hard enough burying a student, let alone burying a child.  I'd only taught Sam 4 years when he passed and it cut down to the bone.  It's not right, a parent having to bury a child.  No one knows what a perfect world would look like, but I can take a guess: no parent would ever have to bury their child in a perfect world.  I never got on with his parents, but I wouldn't wish that upon anyone.

I often wonder what he would have made for himself, if he'd not gone and died on us.  Where would he be now?  Would he be happy in himself at last.

Funny, though, his death brought the school together in many ways in our shared grief, and we built on it and moved forward.  When it happened, when we found out on that first school day back from Easter, I was one of the staff who were adamant that we couldn't open for a while yet, my grief was too great, how could we cope?  It was Fraser who said that we should open and be a rock for the kids, and he was right.

I dunno, it was like it was meant to happen, like his time was meant to just end there and our loss would be a source of strength.  Life's funny.  Most days I believe that there's a God and that there's a reason to everything, this despite my being a rational person and recognising the fact that we are on a small planet in a young galaxy of a billion stars in one small neighbourhood of a universe that contains millions of galaxies and, by the way, might be one of a near infinite number of universes.  Other days, the dark days, I don't believe in God and I think that all there is is shit happening, one thing after another.

But that's me, and this is probably the booze talking.

Bed for me.

It's been a good day.