Clean sweep at the dan gradings...

Posted by Sue Wharton...

Yesterday the SSK hosted its December dan grading session on the first day of the winter weather. As usual the grading session was held at the SKK Judo centre in Newton-le-Willows and sixteen hopeful students arrived in the freezing, wet conditions….

This is the third successive time that I have attended the dan gradings: the first to partner someone who was grading, the second to do my own shodan grading and yesterday I attended as a parent of a grading student – my son, Sam, who was grading for his shodan (I just can’t keep away).

Having been twice before I knew what to expect: that I’d be shut out in the draughty corridor all day, occasionally peeking through the glass in the door to see what was going on in the grading hall!

So I went prepared: deck chair to sit on, computer to work on, books and paper to read and food to eat. Then I settled down to wait out the 7 hours until the results were announced and presentations of belts and certificates were made.

Of the sixteen students 13 were grading for shodan, 2 for nidan and 1 for sandan. They represented all of the clubs in the SSK and all of the club instructors turned up at some point during the day to give some moral support to their respective students which I thought was great.

From my (not very great) vantage point through the small window in the door I was again impressed with the high standard of karate shown by the students and their very supportive grading partners, particularly by some of our younger students. I’m always amazed by how well the children maintain their concentration and focus for such a long day not to mention how they manage to remember all of their kata and techniques – we have some truly remarkable and dedicated children in the SSK.

Of course it was also a long day for the teenagers and adults and they put in some stellar performances as well. The mood remained fairly quiet and sombre all day and if the students were feeling nervous then they certainly weren’t showing it much.

As usual, the grading was well organised and run by the grading panel which consisted of Steve Nelson, Sarah Nelson and Steve Hegarty. The task of judging and marking 16 students over such a prolonged time period is no easy feat. I calculated that they had to watch: 304 punching, kicking and stance combinations, 52 kata, 144 bunkai demos, 13 gobon kumite demos, 139 makiwara waza demos (left and right), 144 ippon kumite demos, 144 goshin waza demos, 16 floor defence drills, 24 jiyu kumite demos and 8 shiai kumite rounds.

I think the grading panel deserved a medal after that lot!

This time around there was a clean sweep with all 16 students achieving their respective dan grades – so congratulations to all of you. All of the hard work, training and a gruelling grading day has paid off.

 

 

The successful students were (in alphabetical order):

3^rd dan:

Bruce Bentley

 

2^nd dan:

Charles Whelan

Hazel Whelan

 

1^st dan:

Louise Beaumont

David Coleman

Hannah Cooper

Vicky Cummins

Conah Doherty

Max Giles

Jamie Harmon

Annabel Mooney

John O’Leary

Harry Platt

Ben Smith

Sam Wharton

Alex Winn

 

Top photo: waiting for the verdict!

Bottom photo: The successful students

 

If you have any thoughts or memories about the day that you would like to share then please leave a comment below.

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