Well, today was a big day for me, my family, and my martial art.
First of all: my teacher's instructor -- a pretty high up in our little martial arts world -- was promoted (officially) today to 8th degree black belt. This is a pretty rare thing: there is only one in the system, and only one person "above" him now in the system (the founder himself). He's been doing this for over 40 years, so this is not a small achievement.
(An aside: in systems that rank using the more-or-less traditional Japanese belt-ranking system, ranks typically go from the rainbow-of-colored-belts you see, culminating in a black belt -- this is the first degree black belt. Typically, as one learns more and performs more, one moves up in rank. The top "fighting" belt in most systems -- the top rank for which one tests -- is fifth degree black belt. Above that, promotions are based upon what you bring to the system as a whole, and how many students you have, and what your students have produced.
In our system, which has been in existence for almost (only) 50 years, there are only 180-some black belts of any degree, and of course as you go up there are fewer and fewer higher ranking belts. I think there may be only one seventh-degree black belt, two sixth-degrees, and only one or two fifth degrees of which I am aware. My teacher's teacher (and in some measure my own teacher) has produced some 50 black belts under his tutelage in the last 13 years, since he received 7th degree black belt. Of those, there are at least 2 fourth-degree blackbelts, one third degree black belt and a whole slew o' second-degree black belts produced.)
There was a short exhibition, before the associated tournament (for adults and children) that happened: some of this new 8th dan's blackbelts performed (including my teacher) various forms (mostly Chinese forms like "Tiger Crane" or a pair of very interesting Chinese fan forms), then the Grandmaster of the system did some very interesting "breaks" -- actually only one -- that involved basically taking a 3 foot piece of road asphalt and breaking it in half against the arms of our new 8th-dan. (If you don't think that's impressive, go try it yourself.) After that, Mr. hachidan was presented with his 8th dan belt, a large scroll upon which all of his blackbelts would place their seals, and he was declared the lineage-holder (as far as I could tell) -- the person to carry on the art after the current grandmaster is ... no longer practicing. But let's not go there now.
Now, as for my own little part in this. My two older sons (aged 11 and 7) also take karate, and participated in the adjunct tournament that went on today. For the kids' dvision, there were forms (kata) competition, and point-fighting competitions. My younger son came in a multi-way tie for second place in his age and level division, and my oldest son got first place (woot!) in the forms division.
When it came to sparring, however, well, he was paired up with a kid who was, "a head-and-a-half shorter than [son #1]" and two belt levels lower. My son, for whatever reasons, decided to "go easy on this kid" and let the littler one win their point-fighting round. (Personally, I think the calculus that my son made was more like "there is no way I can win this -- even if I win, it's against someone smaller and younger an less experienced than I. Besides, I already got my 1st-place trophy.")
(Aside #2: Point fighting is a curiosity that is basically a karate "fight", except instead of an all out knock-'em-down brawl, you score "points" for techniques scored to various parts of the body. Think "fencing" with fists instead of sabres. Or, if you want, a cross between "tag" and "kickboxing".)
Oh yes: for me, well, I was in the "old folks brown belt division" -- and came in second for my forms competition. Then I did point-fighting, and made it through to a second round of eliminations before being knocked out handily by someone half my age and weight. (Most everyone half my age is half my weight too, it seems.) This is a better place than I made last year, when I was knocked out in round one. This came as pleasant surprise, and my kids were thrilled to watch "abba" beat the pants off of someone. (My opponent did not lack one bit for aggressiveness and technique: he was quite good. And, he only did the fighting. But, I was better.)
Then we did "breaking". Breaking is that opportunity that brown belts in my system get to show off something unique by, well, breaking stuff. Mostly it's pine boards, in stacks without spacers (using spacers is cheating!) but occasionally someone does a patio brick (big ol' cement brick about 5 cm thick by 60 cm long by 30 cm deep -- not as hard to break as it sounds, if you're into breaking things). Like ice skating, it's graded on a scale that is semi-objective (you lose points if you try to break the item(s) and they don't break the first or second hit) and mostly-subjective (your break is evaluated for difficulty and, well, verve and élan).
Many students did multiple breaks, or one break of boards suspended in different manners. My break was the following: one knotty board (punched from the chest straight forward), one board (punched from the chest straight out to my side), one board (kicked) -- all at the same time -- followed by one board across my exceptionally hard head.
Now, breaking one board is simple. It is almost entirely a mind-over-matter issue. Two boards in different directions is harder -- you are no longer mustering all your energy on one point. Three different directions is harder yet. And breaking one board across your head? Pure flash -- it doesn't hurt and if you hit it on the right place one piece of the board goes flying across the room.
This break is something I had tried previously but had not yet been able to make "go".
Until today.
Today, it went. Boy did it go. It received accolates from onlookers and dropped jaws from judges. The flying piece of wood from the head break almost knocked the aforementioned 8th-dan black belt in the head.
And it won first place.