Grading dates.

I have been trying to remember when I graded to different ranks previously, and how long I spent at each kyu.  Fortunately, I found my old “budo passport” that was used by members of the YKKF (Yudansha Kobujitsu Karate-Doh Federation) when I was a student and it has all this information in it.

Here is my timeline:

• September 20, 1993 — I began training in Japanese Goju-ryu at McMaster University.

• November 24, 1993 — I graded to yellow belt in Japanese Goju-ryu. (Time as white belt: 2 months).

• March 28, 1994 — I graded to orange belt in Japanese Goju-ryu. (Time as yellow belt: 4 months).

• June 2, 1994 — I graded to green belt in Okinawan Jundokan Goju-ryu. By this time, I was training at a dojo in Orillia and was attending a lot of classes. I was surprised when my Sensei told me I would be grading so soon, but he must have thought I was ready. (Time as orange belt: just over 2 months).

• January 21, 1995 — I graded to blue belt in Okinawan Jundokan Goju-ryu. (Time as green belt: 7.5 months).

• September 23, 1995 — I graded to brown belt in Okinawan Jundokan Goju-ryu. (Time as blue belt: 8 months).

• June 24, 1996 — The last entry in my passport for attending a class. I am not sure if I continued to attend classes until the end of that summer but they weren’t logged (this is plausible), but in any case I stopped training regularly by the time I returned to the 4th year of my undergraduate degree and chose to focus on my research and academics. (Time spent training as a brown belt: 9 or 10 months).

Total time spent training: approximately 3 years.

I find it amazing that I remember as much as I do, given how long ago this was. I chalk it up to having been trained well by my Sensei and taking it very seriously when I was training. I used to attend a lot of classes on weekends and throughout the summers, including both junior and senior belt classes and helping with children’s classes.  I am hoping that it will continue coming back to me, or that I can learn it much more quickly this time around because of my earlier experience. In any case, it feels great to be back in the gi.