Technical (and Endurance) grading done!

The guys have passed their second hurdle; the technical grading. It ran for 4 1/2 hours last night finishing at about 12:30 this morning. It was also nice to see a grading where there was a good mix of gruelling, almost dying, intensity and focus on the technical.

There were times when the guys were about to pass out from exhaustion and times when all could enjoy a joke. I don’t think anyone missed the jumping-spinning kicks. Perhaps they, and the complexes, will appear on Sunday at the graduation.

The technical stuff looked great. Everyone put in and looked worthy of their belt, but Gretta and Simon stood out overall. The ground defence was particularly challenging and Andrew copped another whack on the nose courtesy of Bernie (the ground defence master). The kata looked awesome (what I saw through the camera viewfinder anyway).

I took over 200 photos during the night and still have to process them. I borrowed Fiona’s L-series lens and used it throughout the night; it’s brilliant (c’mon Tattslotto!) and hopefully the photo’s will reflect that. I’ve split the photo’s across three sets so they’re easy to view (I ended up with about 150 after cleanup).

They have also completed the third part of the grading; the endurance testing. I’ve tacked the endurance photos to this post rather than starting another post.

The photo pages are:

• Technical Part 1 – warmups, tradiational, some kata, randori and offensive/defensive drills
• Technical Part 2 – escapes and ground defence
• Technical Part 3 – freestyle & sparring drills, more kata
• Endurance

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