Emma Goes Brown

There can't be much in life that's more intimidating than an Aikido test. The yudansha (black belts) sit in a line — strictly in order of rank, of course — in a corner of the dojo. You stand alone at the shomen (the front of the room). The Sensei (principal teacher) calls students up to the shomen, one at a time, to serve as uké (attacker). The other students sit in their own line toward the rear of the dojo. Each uké attacks, and for an hour and a half everyone sees exactly what you can do.

Mostly it goes on in silence, but every so often the yudansha comment. Sometimes they make demands: "From that entry, show me a corner throw from ten-kon," or "I want to see four variations on nikkyo." Sometimes (and never good times) they offer appraisals: "That's not gonna work" or just "Oooff!"

Last night was Emma's turn. Below black belt, there are seven kyus (ranks), and the more highly you rank, the lower is the number of your kyu. These ranks correspond to belt colors, or course: seventh kyu is white, kyus six through four are blue, and kyus three through one are brown. Emma's been at fourth kyu for some time, so this test was a fairly big one — the chance to move up from blue to brown belt.

She was great! The test was harder than any she's taken before, precisely because she was going for a higher rank. She was expected to know more, but on top of that the attackers (especially those at higher levels) attacked harder. Didn't matter; she passed it easily (although she probably wouldn't have used that word) and is now a brown belt!

Emma demonstrates her technique on her hapless dad.	Emma, sporting her new brown belt, surrenders her old blue belt to Sensei.