First Grading - What to Expect?

**marcwagz** · Posted On: 6/18/2012 8:40pm

Hello fellow martial artists. I am currently a student of Goju Ryu Karate, a form of Karate I quite like so far!
I have been taking it for about three and a half four months now and I have been booked for my first grading and have been preparing for the past week and a half.

It is probably a little silly but I am quite excited to no longer be the lowest rank in the dojo, even though I will be grading before some white belts who joined before me, that is likely because I train quite often and probably a little more often than them. Regardless of this I still felt like the dojo noob until class today where there was a younger lad attending his 3rd class so it will be nice to go up to 9th kyu.

When I ask the Sempai's what its like they say I should do well and that it will be a tough workout and my katas and shadowboxing skills will be tested along with the basic arm movements. Full contact gear is required so I'm sure I'll have to spar a bit as well.

What was your first grading like? Any tips and hints and the like for me and other first time graders?

**WorldWarCheese** · Posted On: 6/22/2012 12:12am

In my first Judo Dojo gradings were a simple affair. Once we passed the minimum time requirements the coach usually observed us during class and later a belt was handed to us.

I never ranked up in my second Judo school but I heard it was a bit more formal.

In Goju it was very formal with a bit of pomp and circumstance but the meat of it was kata, bunkai, and "reactions" where someone punches at you (one step and stop lungies) and you did something. No sparring, not any that I remember.

In Hakkoryu and Yoshitsune it was simply showing techniques. You did the techniques, same as in class, and then were critiqued on the execution.

Muay Thai has no grades.

No tips, no hints aside from just stay relaxed and enjoy the experience. Good luck and please have someone take videos of the entire thing.

**Tameshiwhaty?** · Posted On: 6/24/2012 1:09am

Originally Posted by marcwagz

Hello fellow martial artists. I am currently a student of Goju Ryu Karate, a form of Karate I quite like so far!
I have been taking it for about three and a half four months now and I have been booked for my first grading and have been preparing for the past week and a half.

It is probably a little silly but I am quite excited to no longer be the lowest rank in the dojo, even though I will be grading before some white belts who joined before me, that is likely because I train quite often and probably a little more often than them. Regardless of this I still felt like the dojo noob until class today where there was a younger lad attending his 3rd class so it will be nice to go up to 9th kyu.

When I ask the Sempai's what its like they say I should do well and that it will be a tough workout and my katas and shadowboxing skills will be tested along with the basic arm movements. Full contact gear is required so I'm sure I'll have to spar a bit as well.

What was your first grading like? Any tips and hints and the like for me and other first time graders?

Best advice is have fun gratings can make your nervous but you just breath they won't ask you to do anything you haven't done a 1000 times before so just hav fun and enjoy it.

**marcwagz** · Posted On: 6/26/2012 10:43pm

I passed!
All in all it was a pretty awesome experience.
Jot notes...
-started with jogging and some painful stretches/ exercises, then did some intense leg position form holding and stuff like that
-Started doing basic blocks and punches
-moved into walking forwards and backwards and adding in punch kicks and combos
-moved into footwork drills and then into shadow sparring
-The black belts took turns putting us through a couple different footwork and sparring drills
-after this we did kata, only 3 kata that we had to do, had to do twice each though and one we had to do synchronized
-we did a test where we took off our belts and had to put them back on as fast as we could
-ended with a planking session (fun)
-then we did sparring

I as a white belt had never sparred stand up before, must say it was an interesting experience. Only did 2 three minute rounds, got more tired then I thought I would, arms were heavier then I thought. We only went about 1/3 power or so (unfortunately I wasn't used to it so I leg kicked my sparring partner with full power which was dumb I apologized quickly)

I got tagged in the face quite a bit (we sparred with black/brown belts for assessment purposes) but I got a couple good body and leg shots in. Getting a jab or cross through is hard with those big gloves blocking.

Overall it was fun. I can't wait to hopefully start sparring more.

**marcwagz** · Posted On: 6/26/2012 10:49pm

unfortunately there was no videos. My dad was watching, I figured he'd record the sparring but I guess he didn't think of it. He took some pictures but they are bad and blurry.

**dsweet** · Posted On: 7/01/2012 1:13pm

what kind of sparring was it? Ippon or 5 step?

**Tameshiwhaty?** · Posted On: 7/01/2012 1:25pm

NO offence just curious about the removing the belt par of the test?

**daishi** · Posted On: 7/01/2012 7:05pm

Noobs get punched in the face a lot, no worries there. Seems to be absent from people's mind when they first start out.

So you did junbi undo, kihon ichi, kihon ido, and kata?

What three kata did you do?

The belt tying doesn't surprise me for a first grading, though I find it more common in adolescent/youth classes.

What do you mean by shadow boxing? Do you do paired sparring sets as well as free style, possibly called 'one-step' sparring?

Congrats man! Glad you liked it, and enjoy your further testing....there will come a time where you won't test anymore and you'll miss it!

**marcwagz** · Posted On: 7/01/2012 8:02pm

Originally Posted by dsweet

what kind of sparring was it? Ippon or 5 step?

I don't know we just call it kumite or sparring...
it just seemed like kickboxing sparring to me. We just used whatever footwork, punches, kicks etc that we learned.

Originally Posted by Tameshiwhaty?

NO offence just curious about the removing the belt par of the test?

We had to kneel with our belt off in front of us, pick it up and put it back on as fast as we could. It didn't take anymore than a minute.
They never actually taught us how to put the belts on, other than when we bought our gis and thats only if we bought it from them, so I guess they had to make sure we could do it.

Originally Posted by daishi

Noobs get punched in the face a lot, no worries there. Seems to be absent from people's mind when they first start out.

So you did junbi undo, kihon ichi, kihon ido, and kata?

What three kata did you do?

The belt tying doesn't surprise me for a first grading, though I find it more common in adolescent/youth classes.

What do you mean by shadow boxing? Do you do paired sparring sets as well as free style, possibly called 'one-step' sparring?

Congrats man! Glad you liked it, and enjoy your further testing....there will come a time where you won't test anymore and you'll miss it!

The kata we did were Geki sai Di Ichi, Geki sai Di ni and Sanchin
Shadowboxing was pretty free, we walk round using footwork and do punching combos, punch and kicking combos, just trying to show off the technique of our jabs, punches, leg kicks, snap kicks, thrust kicks etc.

We did do a thing where the Sempai would call out a combo or punch to do and we would have to repeat him. Like he'd say "Jab Jab Cross Jab Cross Uppercut" and then "Jab jab cross jab cross uppercut front kick"
It was like playing Simon, luckily that didn't last very long, only like 5 minutes.

**daishi** · Posted On: 7/01/2012 8:24pm

That's cool. Those are fun coordination and cardio drills. You will probably eventually learn a couple different sets of prearranged sparring. I've never heard of the freestyle shadowboxing, thanks for sharing about that. I have heard of some groups learning sanchin pretty early on, though I feel having to learn three kata for your very first ever martial arts test is kind of a lot...but to each his own. Do you do Kata Kihon at your school? I'm guessing not as its was developed to be one of the first kata. I hope the fun you had on your test inspires you to focus and push yourself for the next one, all the best!