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.
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