In the lead up to the September Grading, Master Sensei uttered the almost classic last words to Mrs Sensei, “this grading won’t be a big one.” Fast forward to the day, with children lining up the street and the hall packed, we find ourselves in the busiest one to date!
Every grading event is absolutely fantastic. This one was no exception. The best thing was watching young children make incredibly mature choices, placing the reward of achieving their next grade above the struggle of the grading.
The grading events are hard and everyone gets to meet ‘Scary Sensei’. We believe everyone will always remember these events as milestones, not just in their martial arts journeys but in life achievements. They won’t forget how hard they worked, the effort they put in and how they surprised themselves with the skills and determination displayed. Life lessons were learned that day.
We were absolutely delighted to welcome more students from our Yate school. All of the Yate Red Dragons were incredible (especially the young lady going for her Orange belt) and did Sensei Josh very proud.
On a personal note, I was particularly proud of our son and Level 2 Junior, Fergus. I asked him the morning of the grading if he wouldn’t mind warming up the Tiny Titans, he agreed. He didn’t ask what he should do, he just started planning. So he warmed up the Tiny Titans (Master Sensei will be borrowing some of Fergus’s warm up drills, they were excellent!!). Fergus then warmed up the Juniors (a massive number of children) and the Adults too! It was amazing to see his confidence and control of the room. It was also lovely to see everyone really enjoying their warm up before the grading started.
Everyone did so well, what a great event, it really is something to see so many of us together on these days making such progress.
The dates for the coming gradings are all in our calendar which you'll find on our homepage - make sure you have the relevant dates in your diary!
A few photos from the event!