Lots of exciting news! As you may have guessed from reading the news on the main site, I was awarded my 1st Dan black belt a couple of weeks ago. I have trained for four years for this so it was a fantastic honour to be invited to join the ranks of the ISK Dan grades. What made it even more special was I got to take my grading alongside some fantastic people; Mrs Chinn, Mr Leonard & Mr Richards. I joined roughly the same time as Mrs Chinn and we have gone up the ranks of the gup grades together. We have fought together, competed together and trained together for four years. It’s been a fun journey.
The next bit of exciting news concerns the British Championships. There are some fantastic reviews and thoughts on the championships on fellow students’ blogs on this site. For me, it was an important competition. It was my first competing as a Dan grade. I found the categories much harder, with many more competitors. I was expecting to at the start of the day, after the Masters, but unusually they ran the Gup competitions first. It was great watching all our gup grades perform to their utmost and all the training we put in certainly showed in the results.
By the time my categories were called I was super fired up to compete, which was a welcome change for me. Normally I just enjoy the whole process of watching others and having a go myself, but this time it was different. Maybe it was the new belt round my waist but I really wanted to perform my best. I performed what was probably the angriest-looking chil sung of my life…slightly to weh ga ryu if I’m honest, need to work on my chun ga ryu performance a little! But, it worked! I came away with two golds (chang bond & chil sung hyund) and a bronze (traditional hyung), which I am more than happy about. Would like to thank all instructors who have given up their time to teach and train me, in particular Master James and Mr Leonard!
Now, after a week off on holiday I’m keen to get back in the Dojang and start training hard (again) for the World Championships in Florida!