Beach training on Sunday morning ends with a dash into the
sea at Caroline Bay. Photo by Stephen Jaquiery.
Stifled sobs rocked her battered and sweat-drenched body
as I held my 16-year-old daughter tightly.
I was conscious of other eyes on us, many also misted with
emotion.
It had been a painful, gruelling and inspiring experience,
not only for those on the dojo floor.
While others in the South chose a costumed dip in the sea to
celebrate the shortest day, the Seido karate club in Timaru
traditionally has a midwinter beach training weekend and this
year it included a black belt grading for two young Dunedin
people.
After six years of karate training at the Seido club in
Dunedin, Steve Howden and Zoe Jaquiery were told, at the end
of 2007, to prepare for their shodan promotion.
Karate clubs do not hand out black belts lightly and
participants must be both physically and mentally
conditioned.
The grading begins with combinations (punches, blocks, kicks)
and exercise routines to tire the candidates.
They are then examined in detail on their knowledge of the
Seido syllabus: self-defences, kihon, yakusoku and kata.
The kumite, or fighting, is the final and most gruelling
element.
The examination tests fitness, knowledge, endurance and
determination over more than three hours, culminating in 40
contact fights of a minute and a-half each.
Some of the more experienced karate exponents could have
swatted these exhausted karateka with one well-placed blow
during the fighting.
However, they were there to challenge, test and batter Steve
and Zoe to the brink of their mental and physical endurance.
Occasionally, an errant, stinging blow to the head or knee
would send them reeling.
Repeated punches under the ribs left them winded; but despite
tears of pain and exhaustion, over and over Zoe's aching and
battered body would come back with a strong attack of her
own, making others in the dojo cheer and encourage - and her
father proud to bursting.
To outsiders, being a black belt sounds like the ultimate
achievement, but it really means that a karate student has
shown mastery of the basics.
It's like climbing a mountain - as soon as you crest the peak
in front of you, you discover peak after peak stretching into
the distance.
Traditional karate teaching stresses that karate is a
life-long pursuit with as much moral and spiritual challenge
as physical prowess.
For Zoe and Steve, as 1st dan black belts, this journey has
only just begun.
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