Desirae made a black belt!

[elfs]

Friday, Omaha and I hurtled down to Auburn to watch desirae kick ass and take names for her provisional black belt in karate. All of her friends showed up to watch, which I think surprised the sensei quite a bit. Her daughter was there, looking much more adult than I'm used to seeing her, as well as j5nn5r and (gasp) Jorda even showed up. I haven't seen her in a decade! That was very cool. Kouryou-chan was polite and watched quietly, although at one point we had to tell her to stop waving and distracting Desirae.

We watched her perform warm ups, which were telling in that some of the people took them seriously and others only tossed out their katas as if they were just holding back until the next round. The sensei then described the next round "for the guests," in which we would learn if Desirae had acquired the skills necessary to be "a technical fighter rather than a brawler." An interesting choice of words. They did some one-on-one, showing rolls, fistfights, wrestling, and defenses against unarmed opponents, as well as grappling to "control a situation where you don't really want to hurt the other person." j5nn5r was fast on his attacks, especially his kicks, and Desirae managed to hold her own pretty well.

She made it. We were all eminently pleased. We went over to the Mexican restaurant across the street and toasted her with monstrously large margaritas, although I was restrained and had only a single, unimpressive beer because I knew I'd be driving in an hour or so. The hot sauce was disappointing, because Julia said so.

We went over to Desirae's to soak in the hot tub and rub her shoulders. By this time, Kouryou-chan was so tired she just crashed on the futon in the back room, so the rest of us went out and had a vaguely voluntary round of truth or dare and the question of the day was, "What was your first masturbatory fantasy?"

I told them. I ain't tellin' you.

Comments

[fallenpegasus]

I really don't see the point of being sloppy or unserious in a dojo. One is paying quite a lot of good money, personal time, and physical pain to learn this stuff. It's like cheating on the lifts when working out (which I also have seen and likewise confuse me.)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to contrast this to kendaer's aikido dojo... *everybody* takes the warmups seriously, *especially* on Test Day. The other thing is that, at least in that dojo's brand of aikido, they won't let you test unless *they* are pretty certain you already know your stuff.... and it is also considered honorable tradition that at least some friends show up. (I've done this twice for him....)

Of course, the flip side of aikido is that it is purely defensive; somebody has to come at you for you to be able to do anything with it. Fine for somebody whose intent is to mind their own business, but there are times when the best defense is a good offense...