Yellow Belt Grading

Last Wednesday I had my grading for my yellow belt. The gradings are always held after class to make sure that you're good and tired and this week was no exception. I tried to take it easy in class but Garry had other ideas; it was one of the toughest sessions in weeks!

For the grading itself I was all on my own which was nice in a way because I knew I had all the attention and it was also really quiet and I could actually hear that 'snap' sound that your gi makes when you kick or punch hard. The downside to grading on my own was that I had no breaks. So it was a short but intense grading. I made a couple of little mistakes but felt like I had done pretty well.

I had to wait until Monday for the results. I got a second class pass - not as good as a first class but not bad I guess :) Gradings are done by a panel of three black belts and they all gave me some really useful feedback on it. The main reason that I was dropped to a second class pass was that the arm position on one of my blocking techniques was incorrect and when turning I had a tendency to end up in a very wide stance. But these are things that are easily fixed in an hour or two. The good news was that Garry said that my sharpness and focus was at the level of a purple belt! And thats the thing that usually takes years to develop so I was extremely pleased with that.

He didn't have any yellow belts in stock so he had to order me one in which he gave me on Wednesday. The damn thing is huge! I can wrap it around myself three times! Oh well :)

Next week I'm off to Ogwen Bank for a week long karate course - 5 hours training a day for 5 days. It's going to be hell but I hope I can stick it out.