My brother-in-law and I have been doing Karate for about 2 years now, and we’re finally up for our 6th Kyu promotion (“Green belt” in our system, though with the exception of white, black and sometimes red, belt colors in karate are mostly arbitrary), which is considered the first of the “advanced kyu” grades – which isn’t saying much, Kyu is still a rather demeaning grade, but in the traditions commonly held around where we live, people below 6th Kyu aren’t supposed to read the master text.
What I’m mainly looking forward to is not the belt or the rank, but the acknowledgement that I’ve improved. I’d still probably do karate anyway – it’s fun and it’s the only thing in about the last 10 years besides BMX that I’ve actually stuck with in terms of exercise, and I haven’t stuck with BMX as a form of exercise since the necessity went away.
In a little bit I have to go and pick up Shaina from her new job at Walmart, and I’ll probably pick up a case of bottled water while I’m there – it’s ridiculously hot and humid today, and I’m going to be in a stuffy building sweating and exercising for probably three hours. We have a whole house water filter, but Montpelier municipal water still tastes terrible since our water softener exploded one winter… so I find it’s just as easy to pick up some bottled water every so often and leave it in the fridge at the Dojo.
I’ve been nursing a sprained toe or two for the last few weeks, so hopefully the promotion goes off without a hitch. 