How long is 8 Hours?

It was a question that had been asked often enough.  In the change room, during practise time on the floor, while sitting at the round table in the lobby, even when out having a beer and watching hockey or football. 

All of the underbelts knew that the final exam for black belt was an 8 hour marathon to be held at the Queenston club in Hamilton, and the closer one got to black belt the more often it came up in day to day conversation.  Considering how drained we usually were after one of Mrs. Kersey's regular hour or hour and a half gradings it was difficult to know how well we'd perform in an 8 hour exam,

Prep for the final exam consisted of three or four two hour pre-gradings, depending on how many schools were sending candidates.  For my black belt group it was three pre-gradings.  At the end of the third pre-grading Mr. Flood broke down the 8 hour exam so we'd know what to expect.

He told us that the exam would start with a timed run which I seem to remember being 2km, then we would move into the dojo for warmup and stretching.  From there, we would do standup basics, then routines, kata, sparring, self defense, grappling, then more basics and finish the test off with calisthenics and fitness.

It was one of those moments where you look at other members of the group and think "what have I gotten myslef into?"  That was a fleeting thought however, lasting only long enough to be trumped by the confidence built up on the road to shodan and reinforced by the pre-gradings.


Running was never my strong suit, and I was a little trepidatious at having a measurable result relying on my run performance on the final exam.  So I started running.  I didn't do so well at first, as I'm a little bit like a dwarf.  Very dangerous over short distances.  Every morining I would run for 15 minutes, turn around and run back, and every morning I ran a little further.  I think it might have been more about building confidence and proficiency in an area I wasn't strong than anything else. 

In classes between that last pre-grading and the final exam, Mrs. Shearer made it perfectly clear that she felt that we had fielded the strongest candidates for black belt out of all the other clubs, and she also made it clear that we needed to live up to that reputation in the final. 

I took the day before the final exam off and loaded up on carbs.  I packed my sparring gear, two uniforms, four t-shirts, two towels, two power bars and three staminades the night before the test.  I even slept well, which is uncommon for me the night before a big event.

The autumn morning of the test broke bright and sunny with light winds and big puffy clouds in the sky, my favourite kind of day.  I felt strong, confident and prepared for what lay ahead.  I left myslef plenty of time and got to the Queenston club about 40 minutes early.  I said my hellos and plopped my bag down in the hallway and leaned against the wall to watch the class on the floor while trying to look as calm as possible while my head buzzed and my stomach tightened with exited anticipation.

Finally, the class ended and Mr. Flood told us to put our gear on the floor and then join him in the parking lot for the run.  He gave us the route to follow asked if everyone was ready, and then told us to start.  I wasn't the quickest off the line, preferring to slowly accelerate and let my breathing settle before I started to push it.  By the time we were 1/4 of the way through I was leading the group, and finished about a minute ahead of the first person behind me.  As I crossed the line I asked him what my time was and he said "Why do you care what your time was when you finished first?"

Rather than have us wait around for everyone to finish in the parking lot, Mr. Flood told us to go inside and get our uniforms on, stay warm and stretch out.  All the parents and relatives were mulling about inside the club, so it was a little noisy and busy inside, and once out of the change room I sought the refuge of the floor where I spent about 10 mintues stretching.  I felt strong and full of energy and ready to give it my all.

Once everyone was changed and on the floor, Mr. Smith (one of Mr. Flood's resident black belts) stretched us out and then Mr. Flood took over.  He asked all friends and relatives to leave the club, and to return that night.  The test was to be just us and the grading panel.  For the second time, we looked at each other and thought, "What have we gotten ourselves into?"

Once the club was clear, Mr. Flood started us out on our basics techiques.  For the most part, they were stationary traditional basics.  One was Shuto in back stance, reverse punch in front stance rear leg roundhouse kick landing in shuto back stance facing the other direction.  We repeated drills as such for about 20 minutes or so with pushups, situps, squats, running on the spot, touch and jumps, skis and etc...

After about 45 minutes of this we got our first drink break.  I towelled off and changed my T-shirt, then we met back on the floor for our routines.  Together the entire group did every routine; white belt, yellow belt, orange belt, green & green stripe, blue belt, blue stripe, brown belt and brown stripe repeatedly.  The higher belt routines had rolls, flying side kicks and tornado kicks in them, and I was starting to get well and truly warmed up.  Once we had spent about 45 minutes on those we got another break, then Mr. Flood sat us down and started talking about what it takes to be a black belt, but only just long enough for us to catch our breath before moving on to our Katas.

Mr. Flood had us do Takioku Gedan multiple times, then he said "Now do all the Katas you know".  Being members of the Black Belt Club, the three of us from Mississauga knew quite a few;  Dan Gun, Heiyan Yondan, Geksai Ichi, Geksai Ni, Won Hyo, Seiyunchin, Saifa, Hwa Rang, Sansei Ryu, and Chung Moo.  Having so many Katas, we were the last to be finished.

It was late afternoon by then, and Mr. Flood gave us 15 minutes to have fruit or a power bar, a drink, and to change into our sparring gear.  I put on my second fresh T-Shirt, had a drink, a quick bite, and geared up.  I was getting sore and tired as we had been at it for over four hours by then, but I was eager to continue.

As it usually did in normal classes, sparring started out with drills.  The blitz, the kick blitz, the blitz fade - away kick and defensive drills.  after about 20 minutes we started free sparring, which continued for another 30 minutes or so.

Another break, another T-shirt and a fresh uniform too.  We paired off for self defense work.  No instruction as to which techniques to use were given.  All Mr. Flood would say is stuff like "Defend yourself from a double lapel grab." and we'd go back and forth doing so until he gave us a new attack to use.  I had to use one of my Mississauga partners to demonstrate Tominagi, a kind of Captain Kirk move where you grab someone, sit backward and kick them over your head, then continue to roll backwards and end up on top of them on the ground.  It seems the other schools weren't teaching it.  From there we did all our grappling drills; escaping the mount, passing the guard and escaping the side mount.  I was looking forward to some free grappling, but again, the other schools hadn't done much of it wasn't part of the grading.

The self defense had been a nice relaxing pace.  The hardest work was getting back up off the ground, so it was almost like a 45 minute break, in retrospect, the calm before the storm.  Now I didn't know that at the time, and my T-Shirt wasn't that bad, so I didn't bother changing into my last one.  Mr. Flood sat us down, and talked more about having a Black Belt attitude, and that a good Black Belt would never, ever quit.  Then he stood us up.  I noticed that there were friends and family members waiting outside to get back into the club.  I also noticed that the windows were dripping due to the moist air which got that way from our exertion and effort.  I took my spot in the line, and it began.

What followed was the hardest 25 minutes of my life.  Non stop kicking, punching, jumping, pushups, situps, squats, and combinations thereof.  I stayed strong and continued even though every breath I took remined me how sore I was - I had been breathing so hard and deeply for the duration of the test that the muscles between my ribs were even sore!   Every now and again my leg would spasm as we were kicking, then, Mr. Flood asked us to find a line on the floor, and jump from one side of it to the other non stop.  About a minute and a half into that drill, my right calf muscle started to cramp up.  I let it slow me down visibly, and my jumps were much lower.  Mr. Flood noticed this, walked around behind me and whispered, "Jamie, you're giving up.  I didn't think you would."

What a moment of clarity.  I thought about how all of the training I had done since the day I walked into the Mississauga club as a nervous bartender would mean nothing if I gave up then.  I'd like to say that this made my cramping ease up, but it didn't.  I didn't let that stop me from jumping though.  I used more quadricep and less calf muscle, and finished off the drill with everyone else.  Lastly, Mr. Flood sat us down and had us recline and lift our feet off the floor, and cross them one over the other.  Some rested when it got too hard, but I'm proud to say most of us continued on to the end of the drill no matter how much it hurt and how hard it got.  When the drill ended and Mr. Flood asked us to gather around and have a seat, I sat with my head bowed and tried to recover while I waited for the next drill.

Mr. Flood spoke to us calmly and quietly about the value of being able to stick to something and not quit, about how this was another step on a long journey, and how we were now considered serious students.  I didn't quite understand... was the test over?  I sat there, breathing and dripping sweat, every inch of my body begging to rest but mentally prepared for the next drill which never came.  It wasn't until the doors were opened to friends and family that I realised the grading was complete, and I was overcome with emotion.  I had set a difficult goal and achieved it, and I didn't give up even when the going got hard and money got tight.  I finally felt I was living up to the words that were above the mirrors when I first joined the Mississauga club:  Respect, discipline, confidence, integrity, perserverance and self-control.

To answer the question, 8 hours can pass in 37 seconds!

For the next month, I floated around on a high while I wore my red stripe belt until the black belt award ceremony which was to take place in December.

My Road to Shodan

Dave and I were getting along famously.  I worked with him three days a week while working nights at the Mississauga club teaching the cardio Kickbox program and helping out Mrs. Kersey.

Tyrolit was a good place to work.  When it rained, it poured and we were both busy throughout the day.  There were some quiet periods however during which our creativity ran amok.  We invented a game called "Warehouse Ball" which involved a super ball, a cricket bat, and a warehouse.  Many hours of fun followed.  Also, on a recent trip to the states I got my hands on some shuriken and throwing knives, so we set up some targets and had fun with that as well.  we even had did some kata in our spare time.  Idle hands and all that.

One day I was breaking down boxes for recycling, practicing punches as usual.  As I punched through the tape on one I felt a sharp pain on my right index knuckle.  The box had very strong cardboard separators inside which were also very sharp and had cut my index knuckle wide open.  I could see the bone whenever I made a fist.  "Crap... I guess I need stitches." I thought.  Two stitches later they started calling me "Cardboard Ninja".  Great...  just great.

Much to our advantage, Tyrolit shipped us a load of three foot grinding wheels without the timber safety cage.  Dave and I took a couple of days to secure them with Timber in our own time and got paid $2000.00 a piece for having done so.  I used that as a down-payment for my first brand-new car, a Kia Rio.  Woohoo, I know, but it was mine, it was new, and it was fun.

Unfortunately, the Millcreek club had run its course.  Brandon and the manager had a man to man one day, and decided to close it since the business wasn't attracting enough membership.  In retrospect I am entirely sure it was the location.  We were much too well hidden.  Every cloud has a silver lining however, and so I got to go back to train full time with Krista at the Mississauga club where I attained the rank of red-stripe, which was the black belt grading rank.  Once you were a red stripe, it was expected that you would be training diligently for the rest of the year to do well in your black belt exam.

The program was quite gruelling, every month leading up to the black belt exam would include a two hour grading.  Since our school was sending three red stripes to the grading we would be hosting one of these two hour gradings.  Our pre-grading was run very similarly to our normal rank gradings by Mrs. Kersey.  Fitness, basics, routines and kata were the order of the day. 

Unfortunately, I have no memory of the second pre-grading.  I don't remember if it was held at Stoney Creek or Brantford, and I have no recollection of what we did.  I'm sure I performed satisfactorily however since I was invited to the next pre-grading.

The third grading was held at the Queenston club which was our Honbu or main dojo.  Again, fitness and basics were required and then we got into sparring. 

I was able to dig up some old video and convert it to some still shots of the Queenston pre-grading:

Working with a partner on our Blitz

A partner and I getting some strategic instruction from Mr. Flood

It was a heck of an experience doing those pre-gradings.  I got into the best shape of my life and the prospect of a long black belt grading became much less daunting.

It was just after the Queenston grading that I took a bit of a holiday.  It would have been early September 2000, and I took my dog Panda and went up to Algonquin provincial park for some interior camping.  We hiked the trail on the map below.  Uphill and downhill, through mud, dirt, over rocks, moss, though bogs and green grassy fields.  Poor Panda fell in a river on day one and has been leery of water ever since.  We covered a grand total of  60.5 Km over three days, her with her 15lb doggy backpack, me with my 60lb person backpack.  When we got home on the third night, we slept for 17 hours straight!

Boy did we have fun - we saw a couple of moose, a cow and a calf near the end of the first day.  We just stood there for five minutes and enjoyed watching them in the distance.  We drank from rivers, sat by the fire rubbing our sore muscles and enjoyed just being alive.  Whenever it would get hard and I wanted to give up, I'd chant "Black" with one step and "Belt" with another.  I was ready for my 8 hour grading.