"Black Belt" Category

Well, that’s it. The ’09 Black Belt Grading is over and all seven students passed.

Congrats to Marnie and Miranda (not shown), Gretta, Jeff, Simon, Andrew, and Jane. They ended the day sporting brand new stiff black belts, a huge grin and I’m sure a sense of relief that it’s all over.
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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.
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Congrats to Andrew, Gretta, Jane, Jeff and Simon on passing through the first part of their Black Belt grading; the sparring. As usual it was a fairly intense night with some shadow sparring, a few rounds of sparring drills, a round (or two) of light sparring, five (I think) rounds of full-on jui kumite, and one round of sparring cum grappling (standing to ground).
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It seems to have happened in such a short time, but my martial arts endeavours have come to a sudden halt. Just a few weeks ago I was struggling through my Black Belt Qualifier program with the end in sight and now it seems my time at Ultimate studying Bushidokan is at an end. How did this come about, what’s next and what have I learned?
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It’s the end of week two of the Black Belt qualifier. Whilst not as stressful as last week, it has been draining.
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