04 November 2007

Last Saturday in the Carnalea Karate Club students were put through their paces to achieve their next belt in karate. The morning started off with a course by Senseis Kevin & Sam Lewis and David Brashaw. After some exiciting and varied combination attacks the students were seperated into groups for some last minute tips in their blocking techniques. Coach David explained “Our students have been practising their grading techniques for a number of months. Our gradings are a real tough test for the students and as always we got some great performances and results. In our club their is no 'pass' or 'fail', just; if you do not at first succeed, keep trying and you will get there eventually.”

Successful students for yellow and white belt were: Jordan Lewis and Brooke Morrison.

Joseph Ferguson, Tony French, Sam Stevenson, Lauren Shields, Dean Miller, Eva Morrison and Riley Westwood all completed the syllabus for yellow belt. Two outstanding performances at this level were Ryan Bennett and Aime McAllister who both moved directly from red belt to yellow belt. Brother and sister Niamh and Jack Pang along with Ryan Jackson, Nathan Lockhart and Gareth Carlile were awarded their orange belt and a first class pass at the same grade going to Alex Martin. Kirstie Greer showed her determination earning her green and orange belt and green with a blue stripe belts being awarded to GT Wright, Sarah Shields and Conor Porter.

The club had two new junior students moving to purple with a white stripe. These went to Rhiannon Wells and Craig Brashaw. As explained above, karate grades are not easy to come by, so it is a teriffic achievement for these young kids to earn this belt.

The top belts of the day went to Neil & Glen Bailie who both were awarded 1st kyu Black and Brown belt by Sensei Brashaw and 2nd kyu brown to Claire McPeake.

David added all three of these students were excellent. Claire's spirit is tremendous and the sparring at the end of the grading between Neil & Glen had to be seen to believed. It was fast, skillful and full of serious determination.

Everyone of these students can be extremely proud of their performance as at Carnalea we set our standards very high.