I find the concept of testing fascinating. I have always been psychologically resistant to ‘testing’ of any kind. This sent me, athletically speaking, into wrestling and boxing and stick fighting rather than Asian-based arts. The most comical thing about my patent refusal to study for tests and take them seriously—and hence the injustice of me even critiquing this belt test—in school accelerated my failure as a student. As I took my seat I could not help but think back to the only test I remember taking as a child.

At Trailer Park Junior High we had these multiple choice tests where you had to absolutely have two perfectly sharpened #2 pencils on hand to color in the block next to the letter you chose as the answer. I did not want to phase up but phase down. I had already gotten slotted too high up academically based on my high reading comprehension scores, resulting in me being placed in math classes that I could not pass. I wanted to flunk but did not want to be too obvious. There were 4 answers to each question, one of them being correct. For the first answer I colored in D, for the second, C, for the third B, and for the fourth A, and then repeated the cycle. I had unwittingly stumbled upon the test sequence and scored perfect, and was placed in the highest class for my freshman year of high school.

Thank God my teacher wasn’t the guy giving the belt test below, because his fascist eye for detail would have caught me red-handed and put me where I belonged, with the idiots, and I would have gotten some 15-year-old sub-genius pregnant and would still be shoveling woodchips in Washington PA…

For Details on Sensei Jansen’s Shorin-Ryu Class at the 33rd Street YMCA see the article on this page, 15th from the bottom of the compressed list.

Steve specializes in instructing children in traditional karate, which means they don’t throw foam rings at stuffed animals, and do have to learn enough Japanese words to make a collectable card geek baulk. All of the karate places that have daycare vans parked out front and have ‘discipline’ as part of their advertisement, are taking credit for a dying form of instruction that only a few older instructors like Sensei Jansen still deliver. I have never been to a belt test, but have heard many a harrowing tale told by kick-boxer friends about their belt tests from the 70’s and 80’s that smacked of hazing.

Steve and I sat and discussed MMA until two young parents brought in their children, already uniformed: a third-grade boy and a sister who appeared to be three years older. This was a nice nuclear middle-class family quietly supporting their children together, as opposed to estranged parents haranguing their pint-sized soccer prodigies from the sidelines. The author of Escape from Planet Meathead was thrilled!

Steve had informed me that his advanced class meets on Tuesday and Thursday, and that his Saturday slots are reserved for the beginners’ class and belt tests. These siblings were testing to advance to the weekday class slots. Other schools call this second belt [one up from white, which would be my perpetual Shorin-Ryu rank considering the Japanese language requirement] a yellow belt. Steve makes sure he calls it the gold belt, a seemingly slight semantic nod to the importance of this step. The earning of this belt means that the student is conversant in this form of karate, and has essentially advanced to what you jocks would call ‘coachability’ status. Sensei Jansen’s washout ratio is 9-to-1 from white to gold rank, and explains both his lack of commercial success and the high value that his students derive from what, in many schools, is nothing but the scholastic equivalent of an organized recess. Steve’s class is like a cross between 1970’s phys-ed. and a monastic boot camp.

Belts are not striped [with colored tape hashes] until blue belt, as that rank has different cues.

Saturday, 4/27/13

2:30 until 3:30 PM

The parents, students and author were handed a one page document: Okinawan Shorin-Ryu Gold Belt Requirements, which served as a worksheet.

There was a 20-hour requirement, which had been met by both students.

The uniforms and fingernails of the students were checked for cleanliness.

The students were directed to do 20 jumping jacks, 20 sit-ups, 20 pushups, and 20 laps of the 40-by-40 dance room, while the instructor spoke with the parents. The students had to call out their laps in Japanese [I would be a marathon runner if I had attempted this art]. The young lady was flagging by the tenth lap and her younger brother was playing acceleration yo-yo and having a good time.

The students were quizzed on 18 basic karate terms. Hit me instead, please!

The students were quizzed on the 11 stances. The instructor spent half of the time on Stance #11: Shizentai Dachi, stressing the importance of this ‘natural’ fighting stance.

The test began to reveal itself as a review clinic for karate fundamentals.

The Te Waza [hand technique] portion of the test took 20 minutes, with 10 minutes on the jab. The boxing coach with the note pad approved.

The blocking portion of the test was about 15 minutes in duration, and, like the punching, involved a lot of coaching, review, and practice. The boy, while Sensei was busy reviewing the ‘folding’ aspect of a block with his sister, threw in some shoe-shine work that would have made Ray Leonard proud, being careful not to let his instructor see this departure from Okinawan biomechanics! I liked this segment the best, because Steve spent a lot of time working on angling and the use of oblique, as opposed to perpendicular, defensive techniques. This kind of defensive polish is glossed over in many classes until brown belt level.

The kicking test turned into a good clinic on the front kick, which occupied most of the time. The round, side and back kick rounded this out. During the back kick drills the young lady grew faint and had to be carried off by her father for water. She had to take a few sitting breaks on the floor, but kept requesting to continue, and ended up finishing the test.

The training drill segment utilized the mirrors more than the other drills, although the students trained facing the mirrors the entire time. This seemed to me to be a set of regimented shadow-boxing drills. This was the most taxing part of the test for the students. Keep in mind that as these drills progressed the terminology quizzes never abated, which does mark this definitively as a test, not a torture test.

Four defenses against the grab were practiced.

Three basic katas were practiced and demonstrated.

The shouting spirit or kiai was practiced.

The session finished with a discussion of attitude, in which the female student’s tenacity was cited as a positive example.

The old belts were knotted, new belts tied, and the students and instructor shook hands and bowed.

The six of us made a pilgrimage to a local gourmet ice cream shop where Steve bought us a round of artery clogging delight.

I will be reviewing more belt-tests in the future at various schools. What I saw at this session was to me a reminder of what children’s karate could have been: physical fitness with a cultural aspect and a focus on discipline. Instead the entire effort has devolved over the past few decades into a money making scheme catering to the absentee parenting mentality.

It was nice to see such a clean example of teaching.