Flying Colors

I passed! Yeah! What did I pass, you ask? My orange belt test, of course. I have to admit, I was a little bit anxious going into it, but once I got there, it wasn't so bad. I won't say it was easy because I was dripping sweat at the end...due to running 25 laps and going mock 90 through all the techniques--all 500 of them. Okay, 500 may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but it felt like 500. Amazingly enough, I did remember them all. Aidan said he thought it was cool to watch, but he is a little bit nervous to do his orange belt test in a few weeks. Up until this point, testing is done in class with just one teacher watching. At orange belt, everything changes. You have to come in on a separate day, for starters. Then, you have to perform all your techniques in front of a board of instructors--who are mostly black belts--and your family or whomever else is watching. No pressure. It was a big relief for me for it to be people that I knew that I was testing in front of. My biggest problem was cotton mouth. After running the laps, I could barely talk because it was so bad. I don't know if it was just out of breath-ness, or my sjogren's syndrome, but it was terrible! I had to explain a technique while having no moisture in my mouth! Ick! Anyway, everything considered, it was not too bad. I now look forward to watching ALL of the rest of my family go through it. By the way, my favorite part was the very end of the technique section, before the question and answer time... and by favorite, I mean not so much. However, I am not going to spoil the surprise for those of you that are just about to start karate. I will let you stew on it and wonder...