Steve's First Degree Black Belt Test
13 December 2003

Well, I'm still at it, and this time I tested for my first degree!  All in all, this was a much easier test than the first one.  It helped that we (myself and the other black belts who were testing for advanced degrees) were judges for the candidates going for their black belts.  Did I say others?  There were about 8 of us black belts going for advanced degrees (or mid-terms on the way to another degree) and there were 9 or 10 candidates testing!  

Our portion of the testing (other than the push-ups and sit-ups) consisted of sparring with the candidates to wear them down for their match with Mr. Pahanish.  Of course, he was also critiquing our styles and techniques.  After the sparring, we had out forms tests.  To advance to the First Degree, we had to know 8 'Traditional' forms.  We'd actually practiced 9, and it was a good thing, as I messed up on one of my forms!  I've built a Word document for all 9 forms that is complete with diagrams, photos and video's.  If anyone would like a copy, let me know, and I'll either email it (if you've got a fast connection--the full directory is 94 Meg!) or burn you a CD.  Let me know at steve@guydon.com or steve@steve.nelson.name.    

Steve's Black Belt Test
27 February 2003

After 2 1/2 long years, I finally made it to my Black Belt!  Actually I never thought I'd stick it out this long, but it's been fun, and good exercise for me too.  Here's a word document that I put together to summarize my test .

And here are a bunch of photos that Cheryl and Alex took during the test.  I hope to have some video up here soon too.

And here are some video files in AVI format (they're quite large, and are video captures of an 8mm camcorder tape -- the quality isn't the best).

I've made a small music video of my Black Belt test that you might be interested in seeing.  I made it with the demo version of MuVee, so there is a MuVee splash right in the middle of the video, but you can see through it.  If I like the package (and it looks pretty good right now), I'll purchase it and get rid of the splash screen.

Left click the link below to play the video.
Steve's Black Belt Test Music Video (3.31 MB  3:07)

NOTE: Below are the file sizes and durations of the individual AVI files that I generated from the original video tape (using an OLD Snappy video capture device).  Due to the size of most of the videos, and the limited space on my web site, I haven't placed any of the videos on my site.  If you would like any of the them, please send me a note at: steve@steve.nelson.name