29th September 2007
| Danielle McCallum | Shodan |
| Troy McCallum | Shodan |
| Kristina Ramsay | Shodan |
| Balan Balansubramianiam | 1st Kyu |
| Joanne Marianoff | 1st Kyu |
| John Clarke | 2nd Kyu |
| Todd Levi | 2nd Kyu |
| Tiffany Apatu | 2nd Kyu |
| Luke Leonard | 2nd Kyu |
| Nathan Goodin | 4th Kyu |
| Jeff Ainsworth | 5th Kyu |
| Nadine Shaw | 6th Kyu |
| Margit Connellan | 6th Kyu |
| Peter Chirocosta | 6th Kyu |
| Michael Bowman | 7th Kyu |
| Michael Harris | 7th Kyu |
| Clint Brockell | 8th Kyu |
| Khasen Collett | 8th Kyu |
| Adam Faulkner | 9th Kyu |
| Charlie Murray | 9th Kyu |
| Andrew Kwan | 9th Kyu |
| Tony Chen | 9th Kyu |
| Dean Brooks | 10th Kyu |
| Kuz Yoshida | 10th Kyu |
| Rumesh Perera | 10th Kyu |
This was by far our biggest grading since moving to our Petrie Tce location to date. I would firstly like to say how pleased I was seeing so many students decide to do the grading and progress their karate. Gradings are a very important part of the process, not just to recognise and reward your progress but to give you something to train for. Preparation is the key to a successful grading - knowing your terminology, perfecting the techniques applicable to your level/grade, understanding the practical applications of our basic katas and finally being fit enough to complete the kumite required.
Particular congratulations need to go to Danielle and Troy McCallum and Kristina Ramsay who completed the 40 man kumite (60 minutes of non stop fighting). This is very demanding and requires months of preparation and hard training. All three of them did very well under the circumstances considering their opponents were of high quality (mostly black and brown belts) and fresh and all three were resilient to the final round.
Over the coming weeks I will be speaking with all the students who participated in the grading to discuss areas that need work. Having said that, I was very pleased with the overall standard and the preparation was very obvious.
Next up for the Brisbane dojo is the 9th Open World Tournament and making sure that Shaune, Nathan, Balan and Luke are well prepared for what looks set to be the biggest challenge in their karate careers. We will need all the help we can get to get them ready and send them off to Tokyo.
Until next time.
OSU
Dom
