What to Wear to a Karate Grading

This is fairly obvious: you wear your karate suit.  A karate suit is basically a pair of loose white cotton pyjama things which you can buy from any martial arts shop.  I believe I got mine via Amazon.  The only thing to decide is how much you want to pay, and what size to buy.  Do make sure you buy a karate suit, not a judo suit, which is heavier and thicker.  If you are a novice and still not entirely sure whether you are going to carry on with this mad karate enterprise, then you will want to buy yourself a nice cheap kit.  It will come with a white belt, which is the first colour of belt you will need.

As anyone knows who has ever worn white trousers, white or 'nude' underpants are essential, unless you are something of an exhibitionist.  Personally, I think thongs are unwise, though you are less likely to lose your trousers during karate than judo.  Women and girls can wear a T-shirt.  In judo this has to be white, but as far as I can see, this isn't strictly policed at my karate club.  And that, my friends, is it.  Oh, apart from a good stout sports bra if you are blessed bosom-wise.  No jewellery, no shoes, no socks.  Undies, white pyjamas, T-shirt (women) and a belt.  (If you are sparring, you'll need shin/foot pads and mitts; and a gum-shield if you are under 18.)

Today I went to my second karate grading.  I wore my red belt.  By happy coincidence red is the correct liturgical colour for Palm Sunday.  This was some slight consolation for spending my morning at King Eddie's leisure centre rather than in Lichfield cathedral.  Despite cocking up some of my renraku waza (combination techniques), I managed to pass, so from now on will be allowed to wear a yellow belt.  It will be awarded at my next training session.  Again, by happy chance, this is the correct liturgical colour for Easter.  

Probably if you are going for a higher grade you will have some kind of totemic garment which you will don with trembling fingers as part of your preparation for the ordeal that lies ahead.  Your 'lucky' trousers, your old 1000 wash grey T-shirt.  But I am still dabbling in the shallows of karate and quite blithe about the whole thing. To be honest, after the adrenaline-drenched horror of judo dan gradings, when I faced psychotic teenage girls across the mat and got repeatedly slaughtered, karate gradings--tra la la--hold few terrors for me.  Sssh! Don't tell sensei I said that.

WEEK 9--Recycling my Palm Crosses

This is something I mean to do each year, but every year it gets to Ash Wednesday and I slap my forehead and think, ‘I’ve forgotten the palm crosses again!’

Palm crosses, as you may know, are handed out on Palm Sunday. They may be held aloft and waved in an embarrassed English manner at suitable points in the liturgy. Small boys use them as swords. Afterwards people take them home (the crosses, not the small boys) and pin them to notice boards, or perhaps put them on the dashboard of the car, as an aid to meditation during Holy Week.

And there they remain. For what are we supposed to do with these holy items? Stick them in the bin? Even protestants hesitate here. Someone admitted to me that she does, actually, put them in the bin, but she unfolds them first so that they are no longer cross-shaped. That’s OK then. My default course of action is to collect my palm crosses until I have a huge handful (I found twelve dotted about the house) and then—ta da!—I finally remember to take them to the vergers so that they can be burnt to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday.

You may have wondered where Ash Wednesday’s ash came from. Is it swept up from the bishop’s grate? Is it made of wood from the Mount of Olives, and ordered from Wippells the ecclesiastical outfitters in a tasteful linen sachet embroidered with a chi-rho? Or is it the cremains of pious priests? No. It is made of last year’s palm crosses. I’m reliably informed that the head verger burns them with his blow torch. Now you know.