What’s an ichi kyu? In American Kyokushin karate, students of karate track their progress by wearing colored belts. Karateka, or karate practitioners, call these colored belts the “kyu” ranks; A brown stripe designates an ichi kyu, and it’s one rank below black belt. That sounds pretty fancy! One would think that, having achieved the ichi kyu rank, the ichi kyu may be full of pride.
Well consider this: Kyokushin practitioners consider black belt recipients “competent.” So, well, what would that make an ichi kyu? Less prideful.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Lao Tzu
My daughter, son and I are members of a karate club in Burbank focused primarily on Kyokushin karate. Other styles and Eastern philosophies interest us as well. I started this blog in order to record our progress towards shodan tests.
In April, when I began this blog, our club members were part of Victory Dojo, a Kyokushin karate studio in Burbank. Unfortunately, we lost our dojo due to the financial havoc wrecked by COVID-19. Institutions like gyms, fitness studios and dojos like ours have been particularly hard-hit in the Los Angeles area. Our members scrambled to keep our community together by forming a club to continue our practice over Zoom. Our Sensei, though he has struggled to find his own path through this catastrophe, stuck with us to help us establish a club. This was while he had to close the doors of his own business and re-invent himself in order to make a living. We are indebted to him for teaching, and demonstrating, resilience and kindness.
In August, he conducted shodan, nidan and junior shodan tests for club members.
This is our journey to competency (Shodan rank) and beyond.