Hi All It appears that my shodan test is on the horizon and I am putting in serious hours on the mat in order to be ready I seen it written and heard it said many times that your shodan test is the hardest/most important/most nerve racking exam you'll ever do in MA So I thought I'd ask around for your shodan exam stories. How did it go? Did you nail it on the first attempt? Did you fail? What went wrong? What advice would you give? What are the pitfalls to look out for? Would love to hear about all your experiences GO!
Japanese Jujitsu Shodan After months of preperation I passed on the first try. My test lasted 5.5 hours straight. Pushups all day in between techniques. The night before my exam I meditated and visualized half the night. The morning before the test I soaked in a hot tub (artificial warm up) before leaving for the dojo. Basically it's sad to say but my shodan test was sort of a hazing ritual. LOL I went through all the techniques in the syllabus then had to spar 3 black belts simulatneously. According to my sensei, my test was complete once I had an outer body experience. On another note, I've seen and heard of several methods of awarding shodan. One sensei I know spread the test out over several sessions. Another sensei, just gave a 1 hour mat exam in front of a panel.
Hi when are you taking your blackbelt test? The year before my blackbelt test I really upped my training hours, so I knew that I was gonna be as ready as I could be. To be honest I can't remember too much about my test but I was happy with how I did,obviously it wasn't perfect but I passed.So long as you train hard and put the hours in I'm sure you'll do a good job.
To prepare for my shodan in Yoshinkan aikido I became uchideshi for the better part of a year. It was a little over an hour long..with the first technique being demonstration of all eight basic ukemi, several times each. Most memorable was staying up super late at night studying for ****ei waza; approximately 105 techniques, of which four are chosen by the teacher during the test. My shodan in karate was two days long; the first day including 50 slow/50 fast repetitions of every block, kick, and strike in our system...from every stance, with an additional "sensei's choice" of combinations. We also did all these things in static and moving stances. Also 50 pushups, 100 situps, and a 3 mile run, barefoot, around a revision. We also did two sets of prearranged sparring. That test took place during a two and a half day seminar....first half day (friday) was training, the test took place after training all day on saturday and sunday. Saturday night was my 21st birthday. Immediately after day one of my test, friends picked me up and we went out all night. I did not stretch (bear in mind, I was in low karate stances for a very long time). After celebrating my 21st birthday out all night, the night morning I rolled into the seminar, trained all morning, and finished my karate shodan test that afternoon. Needless to say I sucked all day long...and that day was when we did all the sparring (a ton of it), kata, and self-defense. It was bad, but all the teachers knew the situation and thought it was funny. All I can say about shodan shinsa is to take it very seriously, and leave a piece of your soul on the mat. Cheers!
My shodan test wasn't particularly special. Sadly the most memorable thing for me was the fact I was asked not to move around so much because it was being recorded on an old VHS camcorder that kept cutting out every time they had to move the camera to follow me. Which annoyed me greatly. I immediately ignored the request and carried on. And at the end of it all the tape was all chewed up. So I don't have anything to mark the occasion other than my certificate and black belt. Which suits me just fine.
