Part 2 Black Belt Exam on 5/7/16 continued from part 1

For almost 2 years I've neglected this web site and now once again we are back.   Even though I've neglected this site our school has still been actively training.  The next two posts were written at the time of the exam just never posted (like part 1).

Next came the most important part of the exam in my eyes, their one steps.  One steps are where the student first learns prearranged one steps which are like mini kata but with a partner, and then later they learn to make up their own.  One steps as I learned it combines sparring techniques and self-defense techniques so I refer to it as one steps or one steps self-defense.

As the student rises in rank so does the requirement of doing more one steps and showing more skill; in time the student will be required to demonstrate kick defenses, impact and edged weapon defense all in the “one step” format.   Now because our school has a large population of kids there are controls put in place; such as the student is not allowed to turn the weapon on the feeder after they have been disarmed, they aren’t allowed to be demonstrating ripping out eyes, doing the dance of death on a person after they have been taken down etc. etc.   All of these things can get the student and the parents in legal trouble in today’s society and I believe that is being irresponsible as an instructor.

However, it is in this phase of the test where our school and our students shine.   In our previous black belt exam only one student “technically died” when they went back in to control the weapon hand after throwing the person to the ground, instead of just getting away.  Hunter, I believe, got stabbed for his mistake.  This time no one died, well except for Bryce after Kimberly stripped the gun away from him and as she covered him the gun went off.   Rest assured it wasn’t loaded nor a “real” gun, but I do try and use training weapons that are as real or as close to real as I can get.  So we don’t use rubber or wooden training knives we use aluminum training knives; we don’t use a rubber training gun, we use (in time of course) metal pellet gun (that have NEVER been used as a pellet gun for safety of course).   By cocking the gun you hear a loud audible sound when it goes off as the trigger is pulled and it was a good teaching moment on the test how under stress things happen.

During the one step phase of the exam the students put to practice what they have learned under stress.  Their partner comes straight at them with a punch and they have to move and get out of the way or get hit.   In the advanced ranks (brown belt and beyond) the student learns to defend against kicks using different strategies drawn from various instructors and arts that I’ve trained in.  They also learn to defend empty hand against weapons; edged and impact, drawn mainly from my Filipino and combatives training with a lot of the material coming from my Modern Arnis program.