By Jonas Munkesøe, Member until 2012
For a while, we had trained on Fridays at Søren's work, where the treadmill was tested, so that we could get used to it when the day of the physical test arrived. Well, even when we were supposed to be up on Saturday, we had been out on Friday (which we found out probably wouldn't have been such a good idea again). Otherwise it would have been non stop karate for a good two months. Monday and Wednesday the usual training, Friday training and then a lot of Saturdays spent on the sword courses.
We of course started with the circles, and I must say that even from there, it felt tough - although there was plenty of time, of course it had to have an extra shell, and by the time the three laps had seen their end, my heart rate was frighteningly high... My mother didn't seem to be looking very out of breath now. It was so clear that I was just a little afraid of the running test - I even had to run 2.76 km and my mother "messed" 2.4 on Cooper's test. And yes: It's probably a stupid idea to give it all up on the treadmill the day before you have to get up - not many minutes into the running test, the exhaustion was already felt...
But I had to run 2.76 kilometres, so that I had finished in just six out of the twelve minutes, there was nothing to be done about it - and of course you couldn't help but be frustrated, since your old mother just sat beside her beyond that, without noticing the great fatigue. However, I managed 2.88 km and my mother 2.87 km (14.4 km/h).
The following week it was time for the syllabus test, and I must honestly admit that this stage of graduation was the one we feared the most. From what we had heard, this was where the pressure came, and where you most likely had the chance of not being able to pass until the next day. However, that did not happen – during the whole session, it went as planned; we weren't even distracted by the comments during the task fighting. We had been told that this was for nothing more than to push us, so Kimu Sensei got to see our limits.
On Saturday (and by then you were pretty much done), it was time for the "real graduation", with the dreaded "pillow rampage". Katas were shown one by one, then finally – the icing on the cake – the tough pad graduation and will test. After a minute of doing everything you could think of with your arms, this part was done and your arms were already well seasoned. But fine enough - the next minute was with the legs, and they hadn't been used at all. However, the real hard part only came afterwards, and this time it lasted two minutes. Then not only the arms were sewn on, but indeed the legs too, and now all of a sudden it had to be used! 300 spectators around one, who were all cheering, were completely forgotten and only the pillow was in the center. After the two minutes we were both completely done, and the last minute we had really just been waiting for 'yame' to be said. (Can't even imagine how dead we ended up looking - the movements had most likely been some of the sloppiest).
But it went and we passed! I got the 2nd kyu and my mother the 3rd kyu, and so it might not matter, however hard the course has been?
