Karate NZ has a service it performs for orphaned instructors (instructors that do not have any affiliation to organisations through which they have the possibility to grade for) whereby a grading panel of high ranking Karate NZ officials is formed and a grading is held. This is an important service as it allows a club to continue to develop by allowing its instructors to mentor and grade its students to a higher level than would be possible had that service not existed. It also provides a pretty good carrot for those orphaned instructors to continue with their own martial arts development and removes the ‘dead-end’ feeling brought about by the understanding that ‘this is as far as I can go.’

In June 1999, our grading experience was extremely positive. Our grading panel consisted of three people: Len monk, Bob Dalton and Dennis May. This grading was very significant to us in many ways: it was the first time that we had been assessed outside our own organisation – we had no idea what to expect in terms of how our standards compared to other organisation; we had no idea as to how good natured the actual grading/grading panel would be and we had no idea as to how our interpretations of our style of Karate would be received.

We were given 6-weeks notice of our grade and the grading was preceded by some of the most intensive training and preparation we had ever undertaken. On the night, the panel watched and assessed the way we ran our kid’s classes after which, we were given the opportunity to present our style to the panel. We were asked to demonstrate some basics, our kata and our bunkai (the applications of the techniques within our kata).

Both Helena and I had a very high level of fitness and by the end of the grading, we were very happy that we had done our style justice – we had performed as well as we could and we truly felt we had been given the opportunity to show everything we had. We were very pleasantly surprised by how respectful the grading panel was towards us.

We weren’t given our results immediately and the 1 ½ weeks that we had to wait was agonising. But, at the same time, we were satisfied that we could not have done better and, successful or not successful, we were sure that our performance had been very motivational for our students watching the show. We realised how important it had been for us to have been given the opportunity to do our grade at our own dojo.

The feeling of euphoria we felt when Dennis May rang us and informed us that we had been successful was indescribable. All our hard work had been vindicated and we knew that we were on the right track, especially as Dennis had added the words ‘flying colours’ when describing our grading standard.

I remember being surprised by how physically exhausted I was after the grading was over. Given our level of fitness at the time, I should not have felt this way and I should have recovered quite quickly but it took me days to recover.

I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but on hindsight, it is clear that this was the start of a very dramatic and devastating decline in my health and fitness.

It took a very long time for me to get a diagnosis that could explain what I was going through and it wasn’t until 2002 that I was finally diagnosed as suffering from Sarcoidosis (a disease whereby the lungs fill with granulomous tissue, restricting breathing and the efficiency of the lungs to oxygenate the blood). At the time of diagnosis, I could hardly walk and I would need oxygen after doing something as simple as gardening.

The future of our club hung in the balance for a long time: would my credibility remain intact in the eyes of my students when I could no longer lead a strenuous warm-up etc, or lead by example? Would my martial arts survive the obliteration of my fitness?

Thankfully, the answer to both questions would be yes: the quality of my teaching was sufficient for credibility to be maintained. And my martial arts continued to improve through the need for me to conserve energy – I had to develop ways to close people down more efficiently and my kata developed a flowing quality that may not have happened had I not been ill. Despite this, it is very important to acknowledge that the club would not have survived without the incredible support and dedication shown by my wife, Helena, and our top two students Jon Hopkins and Dale Hutton who selflessly stepped up to the mark and filled in when I was clearly unable to perform.

After two failed nine-month courses of steroids, I started a long and painful recovery process after becoming exposed to an experimental treatment protocol developed by Dr Trevor Marshall (an Australian researcher living and working in California) and his team at Autoimmune Research Foundation ( www.marshallprotocol.com).

It wasn’t until the beginning of 2006 that my health had recovered to the extent that we could consider another grading. The decision to grade was a very difficult one to make – on the one hand, we understood that it would provide a very useful goal to motivate us to push our training up into another gear but we would be exposing ourselves to the risk of failure and that failure would be highly visible.

Helena and I finally decided to apply for a grading in June 2006. We filled out all the application forms and started negotiations with Karate New Zealand – we hoped to be ready to grade in November 2006. We sought assurances from Karate NZ that the panel would, once again, respect our syllabus and be open to our interpretations of the bunkai (kata applications). We also wanted our grading to be on home ground in order to allow our students and their families to witness the event and be motivated by the performance. We received those assurances.

Both Helena and I needed the five months to develop and polish some of the moves in the highest katas, and I also needed the time to raise my level of fitness to be able to endure the 1-2 hours of strenuous exercise that would be necessary for us to be successful. The fitness element was my biggest worry as even though I had, for all intents and purposes, beaten the disease, I still had significant scarring of the lungs which resulted in oxygen starvation during intense exercise.

By November, our bunkai research was complete but my fitness was far from adequate. Luckily, Karate NZ hadn’t organised themselves in time for a grading in November and the date was pushed back to March 2007 – a good thing.

While on Prednisone, my weight increased to over 90kg. I managed to shed about 10-kgs by dieting in 2005 but further weight loss proved to be very difficult. I realised that in order to be able to perform on the night, I would have to become significantly lighter on my feet. I estimated that I could not afford to weigh more than 70kgs, so another big change in eating habits would be necessary.

Our training became very intense over the Christmas break and that intensity continued through January, February and March. My training was split between training with Helena as her grading partner and with Jon Hopkins who was to partner me.

Once again, we sought assurances that our syllabus would be respected and once again we received those assurances. I also informed them of my illness and asked that the grading panel bear this in mind – we got no reply to that one.

Our training assumed that the worst case scenario would involve Helena and I being required to perform all the kata and all the bunkai for those kata even though we guessed that we would only have to perform a selection.

By the end of January, I was still not able to perform all the kata and all the bunkai without taking breaks in between – my lungs simply wouldn’t allow it. This was a real concern for me and I decided to invest in an exercise bike in order to try and push my limits – this was a good move and by the beginning of March, partly thanks to improved fitness and partly due to me reaching my goal weight of 70kgs I was finally able to perform all kata and bunkai without taking a break.

The last three weeks of training was to be polish – we were both very conscious that we could not afford an injury at this stage, so we trained very carefully. The grade was to be held in our dojo on Wednesday 28th March – the hall was booked and we were ready!

Then two things happened. Firstly, the date for the grading was changed to Friday 30th. Our hall was not available on that night. Robbie Smith, one of the members of the grading panel, very kindly offered to host the grading at his dojo. The change in venue was very disappointing to us, as we would have to restrict the number of spectators we could bring with us and we would have to perform our grading on mats (we had never trained on mats before).

The second thing that happened was that I badly tore a muscle in my back. It was a very painful injury and I could not train in the last two weeks as the only way I could hope to recover in time was to rest completely. Resting was a very difficult thing to do as every cell in my body wanted to continue polishing what I knew. But it paid off and I did recover in time.

Helena and I trained at Robbie’s dojo on the two Sundays before the grading to assess the impact of the mats on our performance. Although the mats were good for some of our bunkai which involved throws, they were very sticky which restricted the way we could slide our feet during the katas. The mats also negatively impacted on our balance. One other thing that we found distracting was the fact that the wall that we were to be facing was fully mirrored – these distractions impacted on our ability to mentally sink into our katas.

There was nothing we could do, we would just have to live with it but we were becoming very nervous indeed and a little unsure. We just hoped that there would be no other unpleasant surprises on the night.

Both Helena and I had taken the day off work on Friday. We spent the day trying to relax and mentally prepare for the grade. I contacted Robbie to confirm the time and he informed us that we should come half an hour earlier as the grading panel wanted to finish earlier in order not to be too late travelling back to Auckland after the grade – we agreed.

Helena and I, our grading partners and our spectators turned up to Robbie’s dojo at 6:00 PM and nobody was there. Had we misunderstood the time? Had we misunderstood the venue? We could do nothing but wait. Robbie eventually turned up at 6:20 PM. He apologised and explained that he had been held up at a parent teacher interview. He also explained that the grading panel had left Auckland a little late and were consequently stuck in traffic – it would take them at least another hour to turn up.

The wait was extremely nerve-racking and we did our best to stay warm without exhausting ourselves before we started. We found the mats just as sticky as we remembered and we were not happy at all. I tried to massage talcum powder onto my feet but the effect was very temporary.

The grading panel eventually arrived and we settled into position on the mats. I was shaking and sweating profusely and it took all my effort to concentrate on what we were being asked to do.

We kicked off with the ceremonial bowing and were then asked to perform some basic techniques. I remember thinking: ‘why are we being asked to do basics in this fashion – they should be able to evaluate the standard of our basics by looking at our katas!’ The drills that we were being asked to perform were not familiar to us and they went on and on and on. I was beginning to gasp for air and the sweat was just pouring off me.

The panel must have noticed our distress and declared the basic drills to be over. We were allowed to rest while they huddled up at their grading table in discussion. The question: ‘how am I going to manage?’ repeated itself over and over in my head.

After a couple of minutes, we were called back up to the mats and were asked to perform the first two kata from our syllabus. I could feel the sweat on my feet sticking to the mats and I had to concentrate very hard not to lose balance – there was no hope of mentally sinking into the kata – I was content with simply not making a fool of myself.

Once the first two katas had been performed together, I was allowed to sit and rest while Helena was asked to perform the next kata. I sat on the side of the mat drenched in sweat fighting for breath – this was not an impression I wished to give, but I was now beyond caring. Once Helena was finished, I was called up to do the following kata and so it went on: Helena and I being asked to perform alternate kata until all 13 kata were done.

I was asked to perform the last Kata, Suparinpe, which is the longest kata in the syllabus. I remember saying to myself at every move, ‘Don’t screw up! Don’t screw up!’ I remember having a couple of minor losses of balance but, apart from that, I have very little memory of how we did.

Again, we were allowed to rest while the panel huddled at their table in discussion. I remember thinking: ‘they can’t be impressed by this!’

After another couple of minutes, we were called up and asked to choose one kata each from which to perform the bunkai with our training partners. ‘Only one kata each’, I thought, ‘what is going on here! They are going to miss most of our stuff!’

Helena chose bunkai to Seisan and we went through our performance of the 13-different applications within that kata. My mind went blank when I was asked which my kata was to be and I turned to Jon and asked him to select one. He chose Kururunfa and I demonstrated all the applications within. It seemed to go without error and I asked Jon afterwards why he had chosen that one. He replied that he liked to be thrown around and liked the thought of landing on the mats instead of on the concrete floor of our dojo.

We rested again and the panel huddled again. I was beyond exhausted and Helena looked tired as well. Next, we were called up to perform one-step sparring – this is a basic sparring drill and is one that we practice occasionally but it is not in our syllabus as it is really a sport karate drill. I was horrified as it is a very tiring exercise. My vision was now seriously blurred and the drill seemed to go on forever. I was no longer aware if any of my punches or kicks were anywhere near on target.

Rest again, huddle again – next up was free sparring. Free sparring, for us, is an exercise but it is not in our black belt syllabus. Helena was asked to spar against me. Sparring against a woman for a grading is a catch-22 for males – you don’t want to go out too hard as you can appear to be a bully and you don’t want to go out too soft as your own performance looks bad. I had no idea what I was doing anymore…I had vague recollections of hitting Helena a couple of times and I have recollections of being hit by her.

Helena was asked to sit down and I was told to remain standing – my next match would be against Jon. Jon is big and strong and if I needed to tap into a cosmic energy reserve it was now. I was on auto-pilot. I was blocking, countering, blocking and countering. I remember pulling off a spinning back kick that found its target and then after a minute and a half, I turned to the panel and said: ‘I’m done, I can’t do any more!’ They let me sit down. The world was spinning, I couldn’t breath and I felt sick. The panel huddled and then asked Helena to perform one last kata, Sanchin – she did. I was then asked to perform one last kata, Tensho – I did. The grading was over. It was 9:00 PM.

I staggered up to shake hands with the grading panel and I staggered out. Many people from the audience came up to congratulate us on a fantastic performance. All I could think was that it had been a disaster. I waited until everybody had left the car park and then I vomited. It must have been a sad picture: It was dark, it was raining and I was throwing up in an empty car park. I felt stupid that we had even considered putting ourselves through this. Helena put her arms around me and said well done.

I turned and asked her if she felt that we had done justice to ourselves and our style and she replied that she didn’t think so. I had to agree – I felt terrible.

We returned to our car where our two teenage boys were waiting for us. They were all excited and said: ‘Man, you two kicked some serious ass it there!’ Did we?

The next day, Helena and I were practically bed-ridden. We ached and we were sore all over. We were covered in bruises that neither of us could remember getting and we knew that the next week or two, until we would get our results, would be very tense indeed. This was going to be the worst part!

It took 12-days to get our results. That time was an emotional roller-coaster ride for us and we went from despair to optimism to despair again. Sometimes we felt that the grading panel surely would be able to see past the poor performance on the night…and maybe it wasn’t so poor after all – we just couldn’t remember. And then we would sink back into pessimism and the bad feeling we had about the night. We monitored all our e-mail accounts and our physical mail box every day waiting for results. The kids were forbidden to go onto the internet and we pounced on the phone every time it rang.

Eventually, I could wait no longer and rang Robbie hoping to get an answer. He was very annoyed that we had not been informed earlier. The news was not good – neither Helena nor I had passed. It was as we had feared.

I felt enormous relief that the wait was over but intense sadness that we hadn’t done ourselves justice. We will just have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, put our heads down and continue. More can sometimes be learned from a well executed failure than from success. Maybe the grading panel just didn’t understand why we do the basics the way we do. Maybe we just have to learn to perform consistently regardless of the conditions – and that is where the focus of my training will lie in the future.

Will we do it again? Who knows? Helena says definitely no. For me, personally, I am going to have to lick my wounds for a while. I don’t want to do it again, but, on the other hand, I don’t like to be beaten either – I probably will have another crack…eventually. Just getting to the point to where we are now has been a victory and, in that way, our grading as served a very valuable purpose.