At the end of the lesson, one of the instructors beckoned me over for some wise words.
"When you grade to first dan," he said, "you can't second-guess your kata. Show confidence and do it as if you're already good at it, even if you do it wrong. There's no void; the skills will come to fill it. Talk and walk like the Alice who's fully confident, and you will get there."
Life lessons, there.
