Martial Arts

By David

This page is a summary of my Martial Arts activity and posts.

I started studying a Shotokan-based Martial Arts style called Seishin Do as a teenager. I attained my provisional Black Belt (Shodan Ho) around the time I turned 18 (late 1982) and was granted my full Shodan (1st Dan) sometime after that. During this time I explored a number of other Martial Arts on offer at uni, including another style of Karate (name is lost in time), a semester of Aikido, and almost a year of Taekwondo. Due to uni studies and having joined the Army Reserve, I gave my martial arts training up somewhere around ‘84 or ‘85.

About 20 years later my youngest daughter showed interest in Martial Arts and we started her at the local school. It wasn’t long before I was training in Bushidokan at Ultimate Martial Arts and Fitness. I trained there until mid 2009, attaining 1st Kyu. Since then I have been training in Goju Karate in Croydon at the the Outer Eastern IGK Martial Arts Club, a part of Hanshi Tino Ceberano’s International Goju Karate association.

The following posts are under the Martial Arts category of this blog.

Oct
23

Goju – Three months on

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Well it’s been just over three months since I started training with my current school. I must say I’m still struggling; both physically and technically. My fitness has dropped off significantly since the Black Belt qualifier with Bushidokan; I struggled to do 20 push-ups last night.
I’m also up against it technically. I’m certainly a [...]

Jul
16

Checking out Goju Karate

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It’s been two days and my body is still aching… The other night I joined the local Goju Karate school, the Outer Eastern IGK Martial Arts Club, at the back of the Croydon High School gym for a bit of a try-out. This is a small club under Hanshi Tino Cebrano’s International Goju Karate association, [...]

Jun
21

Well done guys!

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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.

There’s not really a lot [...]

Jun
20

Technical (and Endurance) grading done!

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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 [...]

Jun
17

The guys are on their way

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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 [...]