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Group Photo Grading

Kyu Gradings – September 2023

BWCSK held their September Kyu Gradings at the Longbridge Dojo over two weekends on Saturday 16th Sepetember and Satirday 23rd September 2023.This was a relatively small grading coming straight after the summer break with only a sinle student from Kenshin SKC and a small number of BWCSK students. Well done to everyone who took a grading over the last couple of weekends. Gradings are never easy when you have to perform in front of everyone and you all did extraordinarily well to take the examinations.

Thanks as always to all those who helped make this day happen in the background doing all the admin and to all the instructors who helped get people ready for today.

Richard & Sue

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Kenshin students and instructors in kamae stance Grading

Kenshin Kyu Gradings – July 2023

We held the July 2023 Kenshin SKC gradings at their home Stechford Leisure Centre dojo due to the travel disruption as a result of strikes and inclement weather for the March gradings. These were held over the course of two Friday evening sessions for the lower and more advanced grades. Senseis Mike, Jacob and Richard were pleased with how you applied yourself to the grading especially as the senior grades grading was postponed the night before the original date due to one of the examiner’s suffering a family bereavement which would have thrown many as they had prepared for the grading on that date.

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Training

It’s not always deadly serious, sometimes we just have…

Whilst as a karate club we like to run a disciplined environment with good dojo etiquette, it is important to remember that we all do this ultimately because it is fun. This may be things like the water bottle challenge, pad work or occasionally the instructors engaging in a bit of light heated free sparring with one, two, three or more of the juniors simultaneously.

In this case one of our junior shodan black belt, Phoebe and I were having a little fun with an impromptu sparring drill after the lesson doing a block and counter attack and gradually getting faster until one of us got through and past the block when we realised we had an audience and they decided to film. The first spontaneous run through actually got a lot faster before it was filmed.

Featured Post Image by master1305 on Freepik

Grading

Kyu Gradings – June 2023

The BWCSK Kyu gradings took place on the weekends of the 10th June 2023 and the 17th June 2023 with a few additional students who couldn’t attend those days grading at the Weoley Castle dojo in week around those dates. Well done to all of you who passed your gradings all the instructors were pleased with the standard of karate shown. As i always say no grading is easy and especially for the younger children they can be quite stressful but you all did yourself proud.

Special thanks to Harvey who assisted on Ava’s grading for the sparring.

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Uncategorized

Easter Break Closing Dates 2023

We will be taking a break over Easter and the club will be closed during that period.  We will be closed from Monday 3rd April 2023 to Saturday 15th April 2023 inclusive and are reopening on Monday the 17th April 2023. We hope you all have a good break and look forward to seeing you again upon our return. All planned closing and grading dates are available as usual on our Gradings and Holiday Dates page.

The BWCSK Team

Gradings

Kenshin Students celebrating their new grades – March 2023

At the next class at the main kenshin dojo in Stechford we took a few light hearted photos to celebrate the students passing their gradings at the Longbridge dojo on the weekend. Well done to you all we were pleased with the progress you have all been making since joining the BWCSK family.

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Group photo of Intermediate grades March 2023 grading Grading

Kyu Gradings – March 2023

Over the weekends of the 11th and 18th March 2023 Birmingham & Weoley Castle Shotokan Karate along with our sister club Kenshin Shotokan Karate Club in Stechford held the Kyu Grading examinations for March 2023. As usual we had students of all ages, grades and abilities testing themselves to continue their karate journey and hopefully advance in grade. We were very pleased with the effort everybody put in to give their best in what any of us who have graded know is a very stressful situation. So as instructors we would like to say well done to everybody who took their grading and congratulations to all those who passed.

We would like to thank all of the instructors and admin team who volunteer their time to help make this happen and organise things on the day. This grading we would like to give a special mention to Becky Clarke who came in on a landmark birthday to help out on the gradings. We had a little presentation of a card and cake for her and a rendition of Happy Birthday to mark the occasion before commencing the gradings and we wish her a happy birthday.

Below are a few pictures from the two days.

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  • Kyu Gradings 18th March 2023
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Cancelled Club Notices

Tonight’s Class Cancelled Due to Snow – Thursday 9th…

Due to the snow and ongoing yellow weather warning we have taken the decision to cancel tonight’s class at Weoley Castle Community Church. Sorry for the short notice and any inconvenience it may cause but safety has to be paramount.

We will continue to monitor the weather and make decisions as appropriate about other upcoming classes. We will let you know as soon as we can if we need to cancel any additional classes so please check back here, on our Facebook Page (latest posts can be seen in the widget at the bottom of this page) or in our Facebook members only area for further updates.

Certificate presentation at Bournville college Awards & Presentations

Dan Grade Certificate Presentations For December 2022 Gradings

During the course of January we were able to present those who passed their black belt gradings in December their framed certificates and Nakmas qualified black belt register official registration cards plus a few students who were unable to pick up their Kyu grading certificates on the day. Congratulations again to Natalia Bak 2nd Dan, Martha Newman 1st Dan and Phoebe Hadley 1st Dan.

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Club Notices

Merry Christmas & Best Wishes for 2023!

Photo by marius.zierold on flickr

Well it has been a great year at BWCSK and on behalf of Sensei Sue, myself and the rest of the BWCSK instructors and admin team we would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Enjoy the break, keep practising and we look forward to seeing you all in the New Year with training resuming at Weoley Castle on Monday 9th January 2023 and the first class at Longbridge being on Saturday 14th January 2023.

Richard Sensei