A great weekend!

August bank holiday weekend means only one thing - Summer course! And what a great weekend it was. Apparently someone forgot to order the sunshine for Saturday as it rained a fair bit but this did nothing to dampen our spirits as we all headed inside to train. There was a lot of different training session to choose from - Japanese katas to Nun chucks, ju jitsu to swords! The rain even stopped of long enough for us to head out side for a session.

Fortunately the weather took a turn for the better on Sunday with the sun beaming down promoting many to pop on a pair of shorts! Again there was lots of choice of training sessions one being knife training (for adults only)  - that is what to do if you get attached by a knife not how to attack with one! This was a very interesting session and everyone who took part enjoyed it and learnt something.  

Monday morning consisted of some group training and some games to finish of the course. At the send of the course certificates are award to those students that performed the best within their grade. This year Arena did well - Ollie Brown received a certificate for being the youngest student on the course and William Brown his older brother received yellow belt orange stripe of the course. Daniel Brown not to be out done by his brothers received a special award for inventing a new exercise called the squit! 

Caitlin Telling was awarded Green belt of the course which is especially impressive as she received the award for orange belt last year. And I (Nina) received the award for best Nun Chucks Student which I believe was more for perseverance then skill! 

Lucky for me the nun chucks are foam and not wooden as I did manage to bonk myself in the head once or twice. 

Monday afternoon was the Blackbelt grading which took place at the Blackwell Academy. Arena had three students all taking their second dans, Gemma Moss, Doyle Dunn and Mark Stringer. All three performed really well and passed - so we now have three new 2nd dans to add to our ranks. I big well done to all of you - its always good to see the hard working paying off. 

All in all an enjoyable and successful weekend - photos from the weekend are available in the photo gallery.