End of year gradings (BJJ and shootfighting)

[gzk]

We had our big end of year gradings this week. Thursday was BJJ; though I didn't grade, it was good to see four new blue belts including one guy who's helped me a lot. They were tested on the whole white belt syllabus plus a fair bit of rolling with the blue through black belts. Also, our intermediate BJJ instructor was awarded his black belt. He gave a short speech about how he'd passed our school every day for about 10 years and told himself "I'll do that one day", then he finally did. Good decision

Tonight was shootfighting, and I was awarded my orange belt for demonstrating hooks, uppercuts, body rips, horizontal elbows with each arm, downward elbows and uppercut elbows, all in various combinations (after having done the advanced yellow syllabus as well). The head instructor, who graded us, gave a short speech about how he loved being proved wrong, having wondered how long I'd last when I first arrived, but I'd stuck to it and had become part of the furniture.

We got a new black belt too, and he demonstrated a few attack scenarios. There was a nice flying knee in there My instructor was awarded his second degree black belt, testing after having gone through the whole advanced yellow through advanced green syllabus, though he wasn't strictly required to. He kept pushing through obvious exhaustion and got through Though, he had to lay down on the mat for a while afterwards.

All in all, a good end to the year.

Edited December 21, 2007 by gzk

[DWx]

Congrats to you all!

[ps1]

Sounds like a wonderful event. Glad to hear all the promotions were successful. Congrats on your promotion.

[bushido_man96]

Congrats on the promotions and the kudos! That Shootfighting set up you have there sounds very intriguing.

[Shotokan-kez]

Sounds like a really good grading, well done to all of you!