Steph kicks the karate world in the chops

On Saturday I attended my first karate grading and it was my first chance to get a coloured belt - blue was the next level up that I was aiming for.

It started at 9am (on a Saturday!!!) and the white belts were up first (that was myself and 4 others) At the grading everyone from the club goes along so there about a hundred other members watching including really senior students (black belts etc) who circle the outside of the floor to observe and encourage the participants.

For our grading we had to go onto the floor and work our backsides off doing all sorts of moves and combinations (and a million press ups)- it was really hard work. I made a ton of mistakes and thought I had done really badly.

After our part finished the white belts left the floor and we basically just sat and watched everyone else go through their gradings (the blue and yellow belts, then the green and brown belts) . Some of the stuff they had to do was incredible - they were exhausted - especially the brown belts (who are one step away from black)

So, once everyone was done we all knelt down on the floor (in order of seniority so we were at the back) and the Shihan (master) called out all the white belts. He congratulated us on our effort and then he handed three people a blue belt - i was gutted because there were only three blue belts on the table so I thought I wasn't going to get one.

Amazingly though the Shihan said that sometimes students show enough to justify putting them another grade up and I was awarded a yellow belt along with another student.

I now have a Gi (uniform) and yellow belt and a whole new set of things I have to learn - I'm really enjoying it though and wish had stuck at it when I was younger (my first experience was primary school would you believe! I also did some karate with some fellas from the co-op in shettleston and I studied a self defense module in the USA.)

I would highly recommend it to anyone that has ever thought they would like to give it a go - it's a real challenge getting your body to learn new movements but really rewarding.

;o)

Steph