So! Grading last Sunday! Scary scary times! As I was at a wedding at home on the Saturday, I had to get up super early Sunday morning to get to Swansea and get my Jitsu on. I hate eating in the mornings at the best of times, and feeling sick with nervousness did not help matters in the slightest. Couldn’t finish my staple pre-grading beans on toast.

It was absolutely stunning weather on Sunday, someone on the radio said it would be perfect BBQ weather – what I would have given to just head to the beach and BBQ it up all day!

The grading itself was a lot shorter than I’d anticipated. Things went well, there were a few cock ups obviously, but nothing that I felt would make me fail. There was an unfortunate moment during the V where I honestly thought I was going to throw up on top of someone after I’d thrown them which would NOT have been good, not to mention embarrassing. Although I suppose they wouldn’t have wanted to attack me again had I thrown up on them… Managed to bruise my training partner a fair bit though! She’s calling me hamster fist now because of the bruise I left on her cheek.

Anyway, we all passed! Hurrah! So I am now a light blue belt! A fun consequence of this is that in order to get my actual light blue belt, I had to dye my white belt with fabric dye. Fun times! It took me bloody ages to find it though, wandered around Wilkinsons for ages trying to find the bloody dye. Turns out they had a small selection that was tucked away at the back of the shop. Only one light blue dye ‘Bahama Blue’. So I’m a Bahama blue belt! Dying it was funny, I thought I was going to get it ridiculously wrong, but thankfully they turned out OK. One of the other light blues was taking the mick because ours are more of a girly light blue than his, but hey, prettiest belt I’ve ever worn! Ended up dying one of my hands though :

Fun times! Though the nails were blue already, can’t hurt to match.

Still finding the whole thing a little crazy. Though I won’t be grading for at least a year, definitely longer anyway, because of Germany. Fine by me, I don’t mind going to a different club and starting all over, I’ve done it once before. Learning it all in German though… oooooh that’ll be a toughie.

Gonna miss the Jitsu crew though. We went to the beach afterwards, chilling with some cider and then headed up to our local Japanese restaurant, mega nommage. Looking forward to heading home though.

Gah, should go to bed, need to get up super early tomorrow. I have a seriously bad habit of staying up mega late.