Gradings and Grappling

Hi All. Well this last Tuesday and Thursday saw two very nice events at the Buntingford Karate Club: On the Tuesday Jake Dix went for his 1st Kyu belt (the last Brown belt before Black) and after holding it all together for 45 minutes he managed to pass. Jake is not a student who is naturally gifted at Karate (like most of us!!) and he has battled his way through his belts to get where he is now. But his hard work, determination and enthusiasm should be an example to us all. Well done Jake!

In the Buntingford Karate Club I do not get the students to take an individual grading for Black Belt, after all, if I don’t know the students well enough to be able to award Black Belt without a grading  I might as well give it up!! What happens in our club is that once you have passed 1st Kyu there is a minimum 12 months wait before you grade to Black Belt. In effect the grading is therefore taking a year. During this time the prospective Black Belt must take at least two lessons from beginning to end, regularly take the exercises, help other lower graded students and seek to constantly improve themselves. When the year or so is up we award the Belt at no cost to the student in front of the whole club.

Next person hoping to grade for his Black Belt is Lou Dyke (see our Instructors section/tag). On Thursday Lou called me in the morning to tell me that he had torn a muscle in his neck and was in some pain but wanted to come along training and could he help out in the lesson. I said yes and he turned up with a training plan so I got him to take the whole lesson which involved Lou’s speciality of grappling and take-downs. All the students enjoyed the lesson and Lou’s neck was much improved by the end of the 2 hours.

Here’s a pic of Lou showing off by doing a good wide splits!!

Sensei Bill.