Book Review : Four

I've just finished Four By Veronica Roth.  It was strange to re-read Allegiant again from a different point of view. In some ways I prefer Four's point of view over Tris'.

So Four is one part of the whole Divergent trilogy. This book wasn't part of the original three books. Unlike the other three books, this one is told in Four's perspective. In the other three Tris was the narrator. Except for Allegiant where Tris and Four alternated in narration.

This was a nice way to relive the series. Especially after the ending to the series. I wanted Tris to live. But her selfless Abnegation personality caused her to give herself up. So everyone lived. But her...

You need to read the trilogy in order to fully understand what happens in this book. Since all side stories are just side stories. They may or may not make sense without knowing the full back story. So give it a read if you want.

Rate : 6/10

Of Blogs and Black Belts

AGH. In six weeks, I will be testing for Shodan-Ho. Or at least I should be if I pass the pre-test(s). So, this has led me to my usual frenzy of finding information about whatever topic that I happen to be interested at that time. So, now it's black belt requirements. I've found that different schools have different requiremnts. Despite being of the same type of Karate. Or the same type of Tae Kwon Do, Ju-Jitsu, Judo, etc.

So, I was reading one school's requirements that stated a Godan (5th Degree Black) would only need a total of sixteen years to be eligible. While another school needed thirteen to even be considered for black belt. That's really a huge gap in years. The Godan school seems to have a faster rate of progression than the school with the thirteen years. Mind you, it's minimum years. But still.... That could result in some pretty young Godans. There's nothing wrong with young black belts. To an extent. They should not be owning their own school, or be holding a bajillion-dan black belt. Young, I would define as 30 is too young to be a Roku-Dan (sixth degree.) Maybe even Godan.

Within the school that I attend, 35 is the minimum age needed for Yondan. So, Yondan here may be older on average than some other school. But I do not actually know. Because I don't have a black belt, so I can't be qualified to make judgement about qualifications.

Either way, I hope I will be taking my Shodan Ho (Junior Black Belt) in six weeks and passing it on the first try. And not end up like the poor guy who forgot how to do Seisan halfway through the kata. Everything went downhill for him after that.

And instead of doing my homework, I'm writing this post and reading stuff about black belts. This site is a pretty good site about the philosophies of karate. See here. It's an online magazine called The Shotokan Way.