The Society of Ultimate Truth

Osu!

For the uninitiated in Japanese, Osu is a combination of the words - "Oshi Shinobu", meaning to push oneself to the limit of one's ability and yet to continue, to preserve under pressure and to endure. The true implication of the word (pronounced as Oss! with a long 'O') could only be understood by one who imbibes the philosophy of Kyokushin. Read more about it here.

This Sunday I had my first grading test in the form of martial art now followed by more than 12 million people round the world - Kyokushin. Self improvement, discipline and hard training are the three underlying principles of the philosophy of this art. To know more about the history of Kyokushin, visit here and here. The website of Kyokushin India could be accessed here and the website of Kyokushin Bangalore, the one which the Kharagpur Dojo is an affiliate of is here.

Coming on to my grading. I faltered in the very first step of discipline when I reached late for my grading :( . It happened to be that the time was scheduled as 5.30 in the morning. Given the fact that I'm more of a semi-nocturnal character, i.e. it's almost 3 in the morning everyday by the time I go to sleep, and with my GRE impending (this coming Wednesday - just about 80 hours from then), it wasn't surprising that I woke till around 2 again in Sunday morning studying and managed to sleep through the entire time my alarm rang. At around 5 minutes to 6, my senpai rings me (amazingly, I woke up with that ring) and says 'Your grading has already started.'

In a flash all my lassitude vanished and I found myself reaching substantially late in the grading test, something which is not expected from a Kyokushin student. After having faltered in the very basic of conditions, we (around 17 of us ranging from white belts to blue junior. A point to note is that all belts have two levels - Junior and Senior) were made to go through all the steps, stances, strike sequences and fighting sequences in order to be marked. As expected, it was most strenuous for the blue belt guys and the least for us - the ones with white belt which is an official way of saying zero-level.

After around 2.5 hours of a display of what we had learnt over the past 3 months or so, the final few minutes were the ones which actually jaded everyone - the stamina test. Duck walk, frog jump and squats - my! my!! the very thought brings jitters. They were the most difficult part for me atleast (and if you were there, you'd have known it was the most difficult part for everyone else too). But nevertheless, it all ended with the sensei giving us some general funda about the various kinds of fighting techniques and explaining how the sequences taught to us could be actually implemented in real life scenario. (Beware oh you assailant!! :P )

Oh, btw, there was this session in the end where Kyokushin fighting was simulated by my colleagues. That was fun :)

The grading results were out by afternoon. I made it to the white junior grade. Though it was slightly disappointing since I expected a bit better result, but surely instigating enough to persuade me to take the whole thing more seriously in a bid to do better. I always had this urge to learn martial arts, and this has been a great opportunity to do so. Though, certainly I've not been able to do full justice to it since I've been quite irregular in practice. But then the academic rigors of 6th semester and an examination like GRE coming up only made it more difficult for me. Unfortunately, I also had to miss a session with sensei on Monday (that is today) morning at 5.30 due to the same reason - going to sleep at 3 .. Couldn't help it.

Oh, well, then why this post .. maybe I'm getting some writing practice ;) .. no comments :D

For any of you who ever wished to take up martial arts but never could, I'd say it's still not that late (is it ever late?). It just needs a little determination from your side and the will to do it takes you through. For those in kgp and interested to know more about Kyokushin, could run a quick search in DC++ with the obvious keyword - Kyokushin. For others, Youtube is inundated with Kyokushin videos. You might want to look at them.

Arigato gozaimasu :)

Osu!!

PS1: For those who didn't understand the title of the post yet, yes, Kyokushinkai means that.
PS2: Not going to the practice for the next couple of days atleast, yet again!
PS3: Osu!!