The Cornwall Autumn grading took place at the usual location at Sennen community centre on Saturday 19th September 2015. The grading started at 9am and there was a good turn out with students from Sennen and Marazion in attendance. Clive got the grading underway and swiftly handed the class over to Marazion Assistant instructor Paul Broocks (1st Dan) who took the class through a good warm up. This lasted about 20 minutes and then Clive took over and got the grading underway.
The next couple of hours saw the students show off their skills with some basic punching, kicking, blocking and stepping. The students then progressed onto paid up work, this was split into two groups, the white belts and yellow tags were in one group and everyone yellow belt and higher in the other group. The white belts started off doing a line up with a single attack from the aggressor countered with a block and punch back by the defender. Once everyone had a go at this white belts then turned their attention to some focus reaction, which works on improving reaction speeds. The white belts then paired up and were asked to show off all the techniques they know to their partner who had to stand still and be a target whilst their opponent moved around them aiming punches, kicks, chops at them without making contact. The point of this is to get students to learn how to control their techniques and learn to focus correctly whilst maintaining good form. In the mean time the yellow belts and higher were doing a line up and then went on do do paired up free practice where each student takes it in turn to be the attacker whilst the other defends with blocks and avoidance’s, then they both become the attacker/defender at the same time.
Once both groups had finished it was time to look at some rolls and break falls. These consisted of front and back break falls where the students demonstrate their ability to fall over safely without getting hurt. Forward rolls, shoulder rolls and backward rolls. Then with time against us, we still needed to fit in the katas! So it was over to Clive to run through the basic katas with all the students, and as the more advanced katas were being done the students who didn’t know them sat out and watched.
The grading finished around 11.15am with students getting a quick refreshment (provided by Clive and Lesley) whilst the grading panel decided on the results. The general feeling was that all students had shown good determination and willingness to do what was asked of them and had all put in a lot of effort on the day. So after some deliberation here are the results
- Loveday Thomas – Green Belt
- Rosco Reid – Green Belt
- Jonathan Thomas – Orange Belt, 3 Green Tags
- Ruby Wilson – Orange Belt, 3 Green Tags
- Tommy Barnicoat – Orange Belt
- Joseph Symonds – Orange Belt
- Neil Symonds – Yellow Belt, 1 Orange Tag
- Jasper Symonds – Yellow Belt
- Jago Gardiner – White Belt, 3 Yellow Tags
- Freya Cook – White Belt, 2 Yellow Tags
- Finn Edwards – White Belt, 1 Yellow Tag
A big well done to everyone who graded today, and thanks to the grading panel Luke Jackson – Black Belt 4th Dan, Denzil Searle – Black Belt 3rd Dan, Paul Broocks – Black Belt 1st Dan for their help today. See you all next week
