I said I would try and post more
So, this will be pretty short. But I guess it's post worthy.
I tested for kyudo this weekend for the first time. And I passed, yay. So I'm not 1-kyu, the lowest is 3-kyu and then from here it goes to shodan...nidan and so on.
I was incredibly nervous the entire time, and that first test is a killer. They basically run you through exactly what you need to do to pass the test on the day of the test, but they run you through it hard.
The worst part of the test? All the seiza, my legs are just dying. I'm sure I've mentioned seiza before in another post, but this was a whole new world of pain.
Seiza is when you sit down on your knees. Thank god they allowed us to stand during the opening ceremonies, I think when I saw my friend test last earlier this year, he had to sit for the opening ceremonies.
So right after the opening ceremonies there is a demonstration by the judges. Which we have to patiently sit through. First there is a demonstration of two arrows from one judge. Then there is another demonstration by five judges. This was pushing 25-30 minutes now, on hardwood floor. I was struggling near the end of the demonstration and my feet were going cold at this point, but I survived it. Then they told us to stand up. No one fell over, but I could barely extend my legs all the way. At this point the people testing for dan went to go write a test. We had maybe a minute and a half before we were told to get back in the dojo for the "lecture". That's when they told us to sit down again. My knees were extremely unhappy with that. I'm not sure why it was my knees that hurt the most, but for the next five minutes I was in a lot of pain...until my legs below the knee went numb again. A couple of high school students sat down with their legs spread out to the side, and they got yelled at for it. Well not yelled at, but sternly talked to.
I'm ok with sitting in seiza for respect and stuff, but this was the whole point of this lecture. They mentioned a couple of things we should pay attention to while doing the test, but the judge talking actually said, "well there is another 3 minutes left, so what else can I talk about". I'm sure the students are used to the pain and seiza sitting at club since they do it every day, but I just do kyudo casually once a week. Maybe my friends were right, I should have been practicing sitting as well.
That was all nothing compared to what came next. See, I can sit down in seiza with my feet extended out, so basically you are sitting on the tops of your feet. Sure it hurts after a while, but it does take a while for it to start hurting for me. Unfortunately for me, there is another way you have to sit in seiza, and you do it when you are actually shooting. Do me a favour. Try sitting down in seiza for me, but instead of extending your feet, sit down on your toes so that sole of your foot is perpendicular to the floor. I can't sit like this for more than 20 seconds before it just starts killing my feet and calves. When you are testing, you have to sit down like this in a set of two minutes, then up to five minutes and then maybe five minutes again, depending on where you are in the line, you can test with up to five people at a time. I somewhat lucked out, since I went very last, and there were only four people in my group. The very first person definitely has the shortest time sitting in seiza, because the first group basically skips that first two minutes, and then only has one set of sitting while they wait for the other 3-4 people to shoot again, and then once they take their second shot, they can just get the hell out of there. But, you are sitting right in front of the judges. With how much struggling I was having sitting down, I'm glad that I wasn't right in the front.
Still, they forced us through two rounds of practice shooting one arrow, and then had us do the test for real with both arrows. I had some friends watching the test, and after the first practice round, I was told that my seiza posture was hunched over, and I was like, "Yeah, that's because my feet are killing me!" plus, I also found that my feet started slipping down, like my feet want to fold under and sit regularly. Sure, I was wearing hakama, but it was the first test, and I really didn't want to cheat like that. So I was in incredible pain trying not to fidget while waiting for other people to shoot. You get to stand up when the person two people in front of you has finished shooting. When they were lining up, I was just yelling in my head "go, go, go, shoot, shoot, shoot".
Please, if you feel like it, please sit down like that and see how long you can last. Apparently, a friend of mine who did kyudo while he was here (he got to nidan), he could sit down like that ok, but was unable to sit down with his feet folded under him. So he had huge problems during the demonstration and lecture parts, but was ok for shooting.
After we finished testing, it wasn't over yet. They announced the results then called us back into the dojo for closing ceremonies. That started "bow...sit down", so back down into seiza we go. It wasn't so bad this time, although when the judge was talking he got to his second point and said "there are six points". My feet went numb again, and they just started to get cold when the speech ended. But there was still a little bit of punishment left. They immediately told us to stand up to bow. No, I didn't fall over :P
I tested for kyudo this weekend for the first time. And I passed, yay. So I'm not 1-kyu, the lowest is 3-kyu and then from here it goes to shodan...nidan and so on.
I was incredibly nervous the entire time, and that first test is a killer. They basically run you through exactly what you need to do to pass the test on the day of the test, but they run you through it hard.
The worst part of the test? All the seiza, my legs are just dying. I'm sure I've mentioned seiza before in another post, but this was a whole new world of pain.
Seiza is when you sit down on your knees. Thank god they allowed us to stand during the opening ceremonies, I think when I saw my friend test last earlier this year, he had to sit for the opening ceremonies.
So right after the opening ceremonies there is a demonstration by the judges. Which we have to patiently sit through. First there is a demonstration of two arrows from one judge. Then there is another demonstration by five judges. This was pushing 25-30 minutes now, on hardwood floor. I was struggling near the end of the demonstration and my feet were going cold at this point, but I survived it. Then they told us to stand up. No one fell over, but I could barely extend my legs all the way. At this point the people testing for dan went to go write a test. We had maybe a minute and a half before we were told to get back in the dojo for the "lecture". That's when they told us to sit down again. My knees were extremely unhappy with that. I'm not sure why it was my knees that hurt the most, but for the next five minutes I was in a lot of pain...until my legs below the knee went numb again. A couple of high school students sat down with their legs spread out to the side, and they got yelled at for it. Well not yelled at, but sternly talked to.
I'm ok with sitting in seiza for respect and stuff, but this was the whole point of this lecture. They mentioned a couple of things we should pay attention to while doing the test, but the judge talking actually said, "well there is another 3 minutes left, so what else can I talk about". I'm sure the students are used to the pain and seiza sitting at club since they do it every day, but I just do kyudo casually once a week. Maybe my friends were right, I should have been practicing sitting as well.
That was all nothing compared to what came next. See, I can sit down in seiza with my feet extended out, so basically you are sitting on the tops of your feet. Sure it hurts after a while, but it does take a while for it to start hurting for me. Unfortunately for me, there is another way you have to sit in seiza, and you do it when you are actually shooting. Do me a favour. Try sitting down in seiza for me, but instead of extending your feet, sit down on your toes so that sole of your foot is perpendicular to the floor. I can't sit like this for more than 20 seconds before it just starts killing my feet and calves. When you are testing, you have to sit down like this in a set of two minutes, then up to five minutes and then maybe five minutes again, depending on where you are in the line, you can test with up to five people at a time. I somewhat lucked out, since I went very last, and there were only four people in my group. The very first person definitely has the shortest time sitting in seiza, because the first group basically skips that first two minutes, and then only has one set of sitting while they wait for the other 3-4 people to shoot again, and then once they take their second shot, they can just get the hell out of there. But, you are sitting right in front of the judges. With how much struggling I was having sitting down, I'm glad that I wasn't right in the front.
Still, they forced us through two rounds of practice shooting one arrow, and then had us do the test for real with both arrows. I had some friends watching the test, and after the first practice round, I was told that my seiza posture was hunched over, and I was like, "Yeah, that's because my feet are killing me!" plus, I also found that my feet started slipping down, like my feet want to fold under and sit regularly. Sure, I was wearing hakama, but it was the first test, and I really didn't want to cheat like that. So I was in incredible pain trying not to fidget while waiting for other people to shoot. You get to stand up when the person two people in front of you has finished shooting. When they were lining up, I was just yelling in my head "go, go, go, shoot, shoot, shoot".
Please, if you feel like it, please sit down like that and see how long you can last. Apparently, a friend of mine who did kyudo while he was here (he got to nidan), he could sit down like that ok, but was unable to sit down with his feet folded under him. So he had huge problems during the demonstration and lecture parts, but was ok for shooting.
After we finished testing, it wasn't over yet. They announced the results then called us back into the dojo for closing ceremonies. That started "bow...sit down", so back down into seiza we go. It wasn't so bad this time, although when the judge was talking he got to his second point and said "there are six points". My feet went numb again, and they just started to get cold when the speech ended. But there was still a little bit of punishment left. They immediately told us to stand up to bow. No, I didn't fall over :P