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Black Tiger
Black Tiger's picture
VERY Proud of One of My Students

I just wanted to say how proud I am of one of my Students.

 He's grading for Shodan Black belt on Saturday and tonight was his fight night.

This consisted of 20 x 90second rounds with other black belts and brown belts, full contact, including take downs and groundwork (grappling gloves, groin guards, gum shields, shin and insteps and sheer determination).

Note these fights were continuous and there were no breaks in-between each fight.

He had the fortunate task of fighting with me several times including the last fight which I asked the timekeeper to make up to 120seconds.

So I’m so proud as he carried on throughout the night.

He's got until Saturday to heal and go through 4 hours of gruelling examination.

Thanks

Black Tiger
Black Tiger's picture

Well, he passed his grading, now Shodan 1st Dan.

A grueling grading, he even excused himself to throw up, really proud of him.

Now his training begins

Th0mas
Th0mas's picture

Top respect to your student going through such a tough grading... but I have just one question

Why do you do the fighting first? It would seem logical to do the examination first and fighting on the following day.

I watched a guy fail his Kyokushin second Dan, as having successfully completing his 25 man knockdown fight, he was soo ill the following day he couldn't undertake the examination (he took a real battering during the fighting).

Cheers

Tom

Black Tiger
Black Tiger's picture

Th0mas wrote:

Top respect to your student going through such a tough grading... but I have just one question

Why do you do the fighting first? It would seem logical to do the examination first and fighting on the following day.

I watched a guy fail his Kyokushin second Dan, as having successfully completing his 25 man knockdown fight, he was soo ill the following day he couldn't undertake the examination (he took a real battering during the fighting).

Cheers

Tom

I thank you for you kind words I will pass them on to him.

The reason why we do the fighting first in my School is that if the candidate can't fight, then there's no point him continuing through his grading, it would be postponed until a later date.

Although I focus on Bunkai, I'm still Knockdown karate so we do focus on fighting also, it is a major part of our gradings and could be decisive if a candidate eithter passes or fails.

With reference to the Bas Rutten thread, if we are Karateka we still need to know how to fight, to just rely on kata and Bunkai is a wrong path to follow, one needs to know what it "feels" like to get hit and be hit at full contact especially if one is Brown belt (3rd Kyu) or above. i hate the "EKF etc" ippon one strike and stop sparring as this is so far from street situations that I've been in anyway.

OSU