Hey, Jason here. Some of you may know that I've been studying a martial art called budo taijutsu. On March 13 I tested for black belt. I had to demonstrate various techniques against assailants. Most of these techniques are not pre-determined; in other words the test giver says "do a wrist reversal" and my "assailant" throws a punch and I put myself in a position in order to do a wrist reversal. However there are prearranged movements called kata that I have to demonstrate. Part of my test also involved performing "henka" or variations of these kata. The henka have to be completely improvised on the fly, and they are performed against "assailants". The final test was a knife disarm. It wasn't a true knife disarm in that I wasn't allowed to hit or kick my assailant. He however was allowed to do anything he wanted to me. Most of these knife tests involve the assailant playing keep away with the knife and the guy taking the test wrestling with the guy trying to take the knife away. You pass by taking the knife away. The test is really more like a right of passage. Anyway, Michelle was able to get a little bit of video of my knife test. What was cool was nothing was going through my head when I went after the knife, so I couldn't tell you how I got the knife from him. But looking back at the video, I guess I rushed him to make him take a stab at me, then grabbed his wrist and leveraged the knife away. The last time I tried something like that I got a crooked finger for my trouble (my mom and sisters are laughing right about now). I guess it was a good thing the test is with a plastic knife, though with my luck I'm suprised I still didn't get cut. Anyway I passed and was awarded the rank of Shodan (1st degree black belt). The tall guy giving the test is Dan Ordoins, my sensei.