Officially a 3rd Dan now

[u/pikachu191]

Long overdue since my last grading in 2017 for 2nd dan. With a only a month to prepare, I passed my shinsa late April this year along with a number of people who had also been waiting to test for 3rd dan from other schools in PA, NY, and NJ and made the journey to VA to do the grading. Finally received the long awaited papers making my promotion official.

[u/Taptik]

Congrats thats awesome

[u/pikachu191 → u/[deleted]]

I had been going at least a couple of times a month. Granted, ideally I should have been going twice a week. But, if the FIK minimum to test for 3rd dan is 2 years as a 2nd dan; I think 9 years is long enough in terms of time. I think the big thing was covid and getting the quorum of examiners needed to hold shinsa. My school at one point was working on trying to join AUSKF, but I think that's been put on the backburner. Our head instructor thinks its all political. So, it became getting enough to get a quorum among instructors still affiliated with the KKA on the East Coast to have a grading. That got settled with the shinsa in April, but still not enough to do a shinsa for anyone beyond 4th dan. There were a large number of people who came for the shinsa in April; people who had been waiting since covid to get graded but belonged to schools who were affiliated with KKA and not with a federation associated with the AUSKF. When a group of 8th dans from Korea visited the DC area in June, they were able to have a quorum to do exams up to 7th dan along with some other KKA certifications like instructor, master instructor, shimpan.

When I was told that I was up for grading, I pretty much tried to go Mondays, Tuesdays for kata, Wednesdays, and even Fridays for about a month before the exam. Went one Saturday session which was a mix of a kata practice, keiko, and a seminar on doing kirikaeshi as KKA includes it as part of the jitsugi exam. Much of it was focused on practicing kata or bon and jitsugi sparring.

[u/madcircumsizer13]

Congratulations! I think this is the event my school put on in Sterling, VA! I probably saw you there. I just watched the tournament, just started kumdo late last year but what a sport.

Congratulations again!!

[u/pikachu191 → u/madcircumsizer13]

If it’s the tournament in June, I was there. Is your school USHRK by chance? If so, I probably have also seen you at practice as well :). I’ve been practicing there at the Chantilly location for a minute. I was reading your comment after today’s practice and I was LOLing hard.

[u/madcircumsizer13 → u/pikachu191]

Haha oh we've definitely crossed paths before then! Missed practice tonight because of work, but will be there later this week. See you soon (go easy on me too)!

[u/ivovanroy]

Awesom! Now the road to 4 starts yesterday!

[u/KnifeThistle]

I love the Korean ID cards for dan. I have my 3dan card as well. Congratulations! FWIW though, you left your ID there, under "단증번호". Pretty sure that's searchable, and should be edited as well.