Frustrated

I'm more than a little aggravated with Sensei right now. This isn't anything that's come about suddenly. It's been building up for a while. I think it all started about a year or so ago. I was due for a rank promotion, but Sensei made me wait for Barrett to get out of fire fighter academy before I could test.

Wait for Barrett??? Why????

I was ready, and there was opportunity. I knew all my requirements long before then. Plus, he gave a rank test during the six weeks Barrett was gone, but he wouldn't test me then, even though it had been 6 months since my last test. He made me wait two more months, for Barrett to get back and get ready for his promotion. It ended up being 8 months between my promotions, because I had to wait for Barrett. Why? Why make me wait?

If it was because he thought I wasn't ready, that would be one thing. But why did I have to wait for Barrett?

And now, he's letting Barrett test for Ni-kyu this month. He only got promoted to san-kyu in February. I had all my requirements for ni-kyu long before I even tested for san-kyu, yet Sensei still made me wait 8 months between my tests. (I had to wait for Barrett to finish fire fighter academy...) And now he is letting Barrett test for ni-kyu after only two months? What's fair about that? If James and I had to wait 6-8 months between advancements, then ALL the brown belts should have to wait that long. But it seems the rules don't apply to everybody.

Cody nearly cried last night when Sensei told him he would be testing for his black stripe on his purple belt. He thought he would be testing for his brown belt. You see, not every child in the dojo has to go through so many stripes.

Ok, the ranking system for kids under 12 are :

White belt
White with one sideways green stripe
White with two sideways green stripes
White with a yellow stripe
Yellow with a white stripe
Yellow
Yellow with a black stripe
White with a blue stripe
Blue with a white stripe
Blue
Blue with a black stripe
White with a lengthwise green stripe
Green with a white stripe
Green
Green with a black stripe
White with a purple stripe
Purple with a white stripe
Purple
Purple with a black stripe

I don't know where it goes from there, because that is the highest ranking kid we have. Chad Aurell is purple with black stripe, and Cody is solid purple. The next highest kid we have, with one notable exception) is blue with a black stripe.

Now, on the one hand, there are all these ten, eleven, and twelve year olds that are having to go through all these in-between ranks and extra stripes and such. On the other hand, you have one eleven year old that has gone straight from solid rank to solid rank with never a stripe on his belt. Now, after training for barely over a year, he is testing for purple belt. There are better students, the same age and older, that have taken two and three years to get to the same spot. Danny Ruth, for example. He's a very good student, the same age as the other one--well, within a few months at least, and has been training over two years--close to three, yet he is still a blue/black stripe. Cody and Chad--both purple belts, ages 12 and 11 respectively--have been training for nearly four years, and this other kid, 11 years old, mind you, is testing for his purple after barely a year? It seems the rules don't apply to everybody. What's fair about that?

On kata--

Sensei has been watching me do kusanku kata since November, yet when Mr. Tedder went over it in class with me last night, I found out I was doing most of the kata wrong. If Mr. T hadn't pointed several things out to me, I'd have done them wrong on the black belt test, because Sensei never said anything about them. Boy, would that have been embarrassing. I feel like I'm going to have to relearn the whole kata before next month. I honestly don't feel like I'm ready to test for shodan--for reasons like these. When I express my concerns to Sensei, he just says, "Oh, you'll do ok." I feel like he's brushing me off--not taking my concerns seriously.

It's getting to the point that I'm about ready to walk away and not look back. If Sensei keeps on like he's going, he's going to end up losing his dojo.