The rank testing for Judo was Saturday morning. I aced the written part of the test, I was always good at cramming :) And then I had to wait for all of the white belts to test for their yellow belt. Since I was going for my green belt I was one of the last to test. When doing the practical part of the test you have to perform every throw, pin, escape, turnover and choke on your list as well as all of the previous lists. There was a panel of 5 black belts scrutinizing your every move, scoring and writing down little comments on your test paper. Also, every one else that has already tested or is yet to test are lined up on the opposite wall sitting indian style and silently watching. My hands were shaking uncontrollably the entire time. I asked Rob to be my uke (the person I throw) for my test since he's about my weight and size, he knows all the throws and I heard that he falls well making your throws look stronger.

Anyway, so I go up there and go through all of the yellow, orange and green belt throws I think it's almost over when Heidi keeps asking me to do other throws that weren't on the list. At the time I wasn't really thinking at all about what that meant, I wasn't even thinking straight enough to realize that this was weird. I knew a few of the extra throws but there were one or two that I couldn't do because I'd never learned them. Then they tested me on the ground techniques, I relaxed a little since I was back in familiar territory but of course after I finished the ones from my lists they started going through others that I had learned long ago but weren't on the list. Later, Nate told me that he could actually see my hands shaking while I was trying to do the chokes. But I still didn't know what was going on until after I finished, sat down and had a second to realize that they had been giving me a test for brown belt. I was so confused.

We watched the last few people go through the tests and then had a little ceremony for the presentation of everyone's new belts. I was the last to be called up, and I think I was more shocked than anyone else when they gave me a brown belt! They said that if there was a rank between green and brown belts they would have given it to me since I hadn't learned all of the brown belt techniques but that I deserved more than a green belt. So they had decided to give me the brown belt and help me get up to speed as fast as possible. I think that I was the first person they've ever promoted 3 belts at once. No one had thought that it would happen, they hadn't even gotten a new brown belt for me, I was presented with Jerr's old brown belt which he kept at the dojo and was about 2 sizes too big for me. I'll get a new brown belt as soon as Heidi has a chance to go pick one up.

Saturday night there was a celebratory BBQ at Jerr's house. I celebrated a little too much as Mongo ended up having to drive me home and force feed me water and toast. I vaguely remember him commenting on my gamecube and being very surprised that I played video games. I asked him why he was surprised and he told me that he thought I was girlier than that. This made me laugh and say "well, whatever gave you that idea?"