dragon team, take a bow

Another year, another black belt ceremony....and they just get better everytime. Part of it, I think, is the closer I get to blackbelt the more I've spent time with those who are promoting, so I have more reasons to celebrate their achievements. Also I've always connected more with people when we are involved in some kind of task--setting up, doing demos, and cleaning up certainly falls into those categories! Being on the dragon team is definitely the highlight--if you have stage fright (as most of us do) its a way to be on stage with 8 of your teammates and going way too fast to think about the crowd. You're more concerned with whiplash--at least at the tail end, or falling off the stage or perhaps conking a lion or buddha with your piece of the dragon.(Think clubbing baby seals..)Doing the weapon demos was great for another reason too--I've always liked to see forms and weapons done by the blackbelts--I like to see with lots of practice, what I'm learning could and hopefully will look like. With those weapon demos I hope we inspired any belt to think about what they can achieve also. That being said, I dont want to see my spear for a very loooooong time!