3 October had arrived… & not too soon!
We started the day off with a class presented by Sensei Soon Pretorius, of kihon… the theme being DO NOT ASSUME! After many assumptions we moved onto kumite, I partnered with John Rust & let my ribs know that they are alive!
The second session was taken by John Rust, working on the 5 heian kata, taking two things out of each kata & working them in detail. In between this standardization was done on things that outside dojo(s) were not doing the same as the Academy.
The third session Sensei Soon did Bassai-dai, Jion & Jitte.
After all the hard training it was time for the dan grading!
Nerves set in with every one! This was noticeable outside the hall where everyone was going through their kata… no offence… it was a bit late!
In the end the was a 50% pass rate, which says the Academy has definitely increased the criteria for passing dan grades!
Well Done to David for getting Shodan & Sherilee for getting Nidan. Myself (& I hate doing this, but I have received over 100 mails asking, so this is said under my breath) Yondan.
So basically if I was playing the old Mario Bros, I would be on level 4… where things get exciting.
Thank you every one for the support & also thank you to the Academy leadership for the excellent weekend!
