Part three. The aftershock!

So I was now a Black belt in karate, it was a very strange feeling, one that I never expected. I had booked a couple of days off work after the grading so on the Monday morn I went out and bought my new belt from the local sports shop. The next night I stepped into the dojo I would be wearing that belt, the black belt. I did not actually celebrate passing my grade in any fashion, I just carried on with my normal life and did not tell many people that I had passed.
Tuesday night soon came and I was at the dojo early as usual. Some of the judo club were there and congratulated me on passing. Walking into the training area with a new belt on was very strange because after wearing the same brown one for nearly two years it felt very uncomfortable as the new belt was so stiff!! Everyone seemed to be staring at me. We lined up to take the bow I was not sure were to stand, I wanted to get in the line with the rest of the students but Frank told me to line up with him at the front of the class. Then we just got down to a normal training session, I got in line and blasted through everything. I mentioned earlier that it felt very strange being a black belt. It was a feeling of let down, as though it had all finished and it would never be the same. When all your focus has been on achieving one thing for so long when you finally get what you want. It all seems flat and deflated. I must admit it took some getting used to and for a long time I hated being asked to help out teaching. I must have been the worst instructor in the club I’m sure they all dreaded me taking the class for basics! All I wanted to do was train as before.
I started to get bored of the training; it all became a routine I was not learning any more. But one thing that I had a passion for was kata, I loved it. So I decided to get some kata books and start learning some more it took me some time but I managed to get three or four advanced Shotokan kata in my head. The only thing for me to do was to see if I had learned them correctly. One of our students had left us to go and train in Shotokan he was a good friend of mine so I went down to train with him at his club. The instructor was Mick Adams an absolutely top karate man. I thought I was quite good at karate until I met this man! Mick opened my eyes to my approach to karate he was so crisp and powerful in his kata I just had to add this to my karate. I went through the kata that I had picked up out of the books and found that I was not far away in how I had learned them so with a little more hard work I managed to switch my kata style to Shotokan. I relearned all my previous kata in the Shotokan way as well. This was a period of transition in my karate and my personal life. People move on and life changes. For me it would not be a bad thing.