Thanks for yet another great term. Everybody put their heads down and just got on with it – with some fantastic results.

Almost everybody went up a grade last term and your standards were all very high, well done.

Those that missed out on the grading due to illness will get a chance very early on in the next term, as will those that didn’t quite achieve a pass mark.

It would be very easy for me to sit here and say, don’t let it worry you if you didn’t achieve a pass on your grading but I actually failed two grades on my journey towards black belt and it bugged the hell out of me.

I first failed my blue belt. Kevin warned me in his own way by asking me if I was absolutely sure that I was ready. I was totally convinced that I was and proceeded to do an abysmal grading.

The second grade that I failed was my brown belt (2^nd Kyu). The failure came quite out of the blue and the reason for the failure was that I performed one of the weapons katas (that are no longer in the syllabus) totally incorrectly. The person who taught us the katas had different ideas about how they should be performed than the person who graded us. I was not happy!

On both occasions, when I did eventually pass those grades, the standards that I achieved were far better than they would have been had I passed the first time. In other words, more is often learned from a well-executed failure than from success – so persevere.

Congratulations go to the following people who passed their grades last term:

Junior Green Belt

Congratulations also go to the following juniors who won medals in the end of term kata competition:

Blue belt & under

Purple belt & above

Congratulations go to the following people who passed their grades last term:

8^th Kyu Yellow Belt

5^th Kyu Blue Belt

3^rd Kyu Brown Belt

1^st Kyu Brown Belt

1^st Dan Black Belt

It was particularly satisfying for Helena and I to be able to pass two new black belts. The standards were very high and were a real pleasure to watch. It is always very emotional to award and be awarded a black belt as it represents the result of so much hard work.

Helena and I feel very lucky in that we have never graded anyone to black where the performance on the day was anything but superb. Sometimes when we set grading dates and ask people if they want to have a crack at their black belts we do wonder if they will manage the required standards in time. But so far, everybody seems to have risen to the challenge and performed nearly flawlessly.

Many many people do quit after getting their black belts and for all sorts of reasons. Many people have great difficulty in adjusting to the target of a next grade being measured in years rather than months. Others feel that they have gotten everything that they wanted out of Karate and simply stop.

Quitting karate is not wrong and it is not a sign of weakness. The moment that you feel that karate is not giving you anything; it may be time to move on.

Helena and I have not had that feeling yet, although we will both freely admit that we have a love/hate relationship to it.

Those that don’t quit quickly come to realise that the black belt grade is not the end of the journey, it really is just the beginning – I know it sounds like a cliché but it’s true!

We have both spent an enormous amount of time researching and developing our style and we feel that it has been of so much benefit to us in so many aspects of our lives that we both greatly feel the need to pass it on in the hope that its development will continue.

I have also written a number of new articles that can be found in the “Philosophies & Opinions” section. The first is a continuation of the first self defence articles and is about how the different components of karate all fit together to provide an effective self-defence system.

The second is a number of self-defence case studies as experienced by a number of our own students, all of which we can learn something from.

The third is the complete story of the lung disease that once plagued Helena and continues to plague me. Apart from telling our story, the article also focuses on what we have learned from being so ill and how/why the illness has actually improved our karate

Helena has also written an article/presentation designed to function as a beginners guide and over-view of karate for people who have never trained and are thinking about starting.

The web site has also been updated with pictures from the grading as well as new pictures that Fredrik (one of our Swedish students) has sent down from China. He has been there for nearly 6-years now and has just graduated from the University of Beijing with a degree in martial arts. The photos were taken during the height of the SARS epidemic.

I don’t agree with everything he writes as he trains a style called Shotokan which has no bunkai to their kata and also he sees things from a sports karate perspective. But it is fantastically well written and the Author really does have his head screwed on. Unfortunately he has removed one of the interesting sections telling the story of his two-year trip to Japan to train. He has removed this section in order to turn it in to a book. I hope he puts it back when he has finished.

A special thanks to Dale, Jack, Robert and Jocelyn for helping out with instructing the junior group. We are so very grateful to you and you are all so good at it.

Teaching karate is a very important component of learning karate. Many karate masters believe that you can never achieve a full understanding with out teaching it. I’m not entirely sure that I agree as I don’t think that it is possible to achieve a full understanding of karate even when you do teach it, but I do consider it to be an absolutely essential part of learning.

Lastly: a very special thanks to Walter for continuing to provide such an inspiration to all of us that are beginning to feel older! You prove that age is not an excuse to stop and you are very important to us. Your patience and perseverance will get you there!

The dates for next term are:

Wednesday 23^rd July – Wednesday 17^th September.

Please try to pay the term fees as soon as is humanly possible at the start of term – this saves us the hassle of having to chase people. If this is not possible, talk to us so that we can agree on another arrangement.

Cheers and see you all soon