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Post by malk103 on Apr 11, 2015 19:04:25 GMT
Those that have followed my story know I have been teaching for over 3 years now and split from my old club last year over poor standards, I have since been doing my own gradings but am only 2nd Dan so can't grade 1st Kyu's.
Today I had a grading and had a friendly local 6th Dan sit in, he happily passed my 1st Kyu to Black belt! It was a great grading with another 19 passing, I think it's an excellent idea to have someone else grade your 1st kyu's if you're a small club, it also tests your teaching ability. Very pleased!
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Post by tomobrien1 on Apr 13, 2015 1:30:07 GMT
Congrats bro! I remember my first black belt. It's a great feeling of accomplishment.
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Post by kensei on Apr 13, 2015 15:23:14 GMT
When I used to have my own club I had two seniors that trained up to Nikyu and were ready for Ikkyu. The year my daughter was born I closed my club to focus on family and helping my instructor. I have been teaching Karate for about 20 years and training for 35+. I have yet to have a person I trained since white belt gain their black belt. Its something I always said I wanted to pass on, but I have yet to get that.
Congratulations on this very interesting and exciting milestone.
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Post by tomobrien1 on Apr 22, 2015 5:11:59 GMT
Here is what I wrote when I promoted my first shodan in 07 - I am really proud of the fact that I will be promoting my first black belt ever tonight. I have been teaching for almost 30 yrs. I feel like a kid who is about to receive a really great gift. Well I guess a good student is a really great gift. I have literally had over a hundred people start with me and drop out. I don’t water the arts down. I don’t do this for a living. I do it because I love it. Steve never misses a class. He has shown exemplary consistency. He knows his stuff & he can fight. I have no doubts about this one. He is 16 but he can fight with the men. Steve has fought in the advanced or black belt div. in the last 3 tournaments. He won a bronze medal at the AAU State Karate Championships in the advanced div. He is very mature for his age. He has been with me for 71/2 yrs. He is very responsible & takes the leadership in my absence. The lower ranks look up to him. In 30 yrs. I have never promoted anyone to black belt before. Some guys were with me for 8 yrs. but if you are not consistent you don't cut it. I am not getting any younger, so I am grateful that I finally have a black belt to carry on. I really give him credit for putting up with me for all this time. I will try to get some pictures of the promotion. Thanks, Tom
Here's a picture of us - I'm the old geezer on the right
i194.photobucket.com/albums/z312/TomOB1_photo/SteveMe5-07a.jpg
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Post by malk103 on Apr 22, 2015 10:09:38 GMT
That's brilliant Tom and a reflection on the standards you've set. This black belt was great but the next one will be more special as I would have trained them from scratch, the one I mentioned originally returned to training when they came to me, there was another I trained from scratch but they recently gave up. There is also a family of 4 at brown belt but may get held back by the kids as they want to grade together. Need to manage their training now to keep them "fed"
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Post by ruestir on May 14, 2015 12:15:21 GMT
That's awesome Mal! I'll be starting my own club here in the next month or so. I'm really looking forward to the journey.
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Post by malk103 on Jun 5, 2015 22:11:35 GMT
Well done Alex, shout if you need any help, you may have a plan but it's not all roses Still worth it though.
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