IHA Black Belt Congratulations!

IHA 2nd Degree Black Belt Congratulations

Just a quick note to recognise and congratulate the 2 newest 2nd Degrees in the International Hapkido Alliance. Both Ma’am Tina and Sir Aaron put in an excellent effort throughout their testing and were promoted on Saturday October 25th.

Black Belt testing beyond 1st Degree in the IHA is done over a month; it includes a minimum of 3 days training during the Full-Time week, attendance at a number of events including the Black Belt Challenge (Physical and Self Evaluation), the Black Belt Technical Review (Coloured and Current Belt material), and the Sun Bae (Senior Belt Training Day). This all happens during the testing month; of course the candidate is not allowed to apply unless they have also completed the required time in grade, class hours, Black Belt hours, and their technical signatures.

As you can see there is a step by step process to completing and testing through each of the senior Degrees, this guarantees a high quality as well as a excellent standard.

Congratulations again to both Ma’am Tina and Sir Aaron.

Regards

M G

Day 5 – Survivors

Friday is the last day of the Hell Week and time to wrap up the miscellaneous requirements in the Coloured Belt requirements. First up I cover the striking drills for each belt and get the students to practice the techniques in the air and the power focus on the pads. The next section after the drills includes Lock Flows, Multiple Grabs and a break down on Tan Jun breathing.

The pre lunch seminar is on breathing and meditation and everyone gets a chance to relax while they try out the basic meditation.

Lunch is followed by a surprise for the students with the visit of Master Cale. Master Cale works on ground techniques with a focus on transitions from a sweep or throw, into a control position. Everyone gets the chance to work up a sweat with his ‘slam & jam’.

The final part of the day is the presentation of ‘survivor’ certificates for those who completed 3 days or more and the official bow off to conclude the week. The week was a great success and a welcome return to the Hell Weeks of old. Every technique in the Coloured Belt curriculum was covered, both in detail and in practice.

Congratulations to those students who ‘survived’ the week. I look forward to the next one.

Regards

M G

Day 4 – Self Defence+

It was time to wrap up the Self Defence portion of the coloured belt curriculum. Today the group worked through the requirements on Blue, Brown, Red and Provisional Black Belts. The concepts covered included Arresting Techniques, Chokes, Balance (2), Kick Defence, Ground Defence and Weapon Defence.

The bonus pre lunch seminar was on Takedowns which got everyone working hard on slamming their partners into the mats. Even the more junior students worked on making the more advanced techniques work, even if some of the interpretations were a little too creative.

The afternoon wrapped up with the free time session and a chance for students to continue working on grading preparations.

Regards

M G

Day 3 – Self Defence

Hump day, the day when the legs are aching from Monday and when the arms are getting sore from Tuesday. The focus today was on the first 4 belt levels: White, Orange, Yellow and Green. I had the chance to break down the concept requirements for each belt and cover each of the set techniques.

The concepts covered today included: Circle, Evasion, Arm Bar (Over), Hand Attacks, Arm Bar (Under), S Locks, V Locks, and Balance (1). I got the students to swap partners every 3 techniques to make sure that everyone had the chance to work with different ranks and sizes.

The afternoon included some personal training time as well as a meeting with some of the regional instructors.

Today was a much easier day than 1 or 2 and a chance to recover a little before the advanced self defence tomorrow.

Regards

M G

Day 2 – Striking

Hell Week hits day 2 and already the effects of Day 1 can be seen as some of the crew walk a little slower to the Dojang. Today the focus was on the striking requirements for each of the belts up to Black. I broke each strike down into its aspects before the group demonstrated 10 of each. After each belt was explained the group broke into partners to work the strikes again in the air and on targets. Each of the students were given a chance to vote on which topics for the pre lunch seminar section and today was again a Q & A session with a focus on the organisational history. A few old school stories also slipped into the session.

After lunch it was time to focus on personal striking requirements before some free time to work on other aspects. Also during the early afternoon the students had the chance to work on getting techniques signed off for their progression. To wrap up the day a small kick set of 360 kicks.

Day 2 went well with everyone still committing an excellent effort.

Regards

M G

Day 1 – Kicking

Hell Week started with kick day, the doors were open by 8:45am and students were given until 9:30 to warm up and stretch out. Each kick was broken down into its aspects and each kick in the curriculum was covered up to 2nd Kup red belt. Students got the chance to do each kick a number of times as a group and then were broken into pairs to work the kick on the shields and pads.

The pre lunch seminar was a Question & Answer and covered aspects from uniform rules through to some of Grandmaster Ji’s history. A group photo of the day 1 group was taken and everyone had a break for lunch.

From my perspective everyone was working hard and as a bonus for the Hell Week, the junior students got a chance to try the senior kicks. Watching a group of Orange and Yellow Belts try Low Spinning Hook kick is always worth a chuckle.

The afternoon included another set of each belt level kicks, some free training time and a kick set to wrap up the day. Students were encouraged to nominate topics for the rest of the week’s pre lunch seminar. Luke quickly learned that after a day of kicking that nominating aerial and 360 degree kicks was not appropriate!

Day 1 was a great success with lots of sweat and a great effort.

Regards

M G

Hell Week

It is the Monday of the return of Hell Week and a great chance to kick this Blog into action. Hell Week is an institution of the Australian Hapkido Group (AHG) started back in the mid 90’s. It all started with regional members visiting the AHG Headquarters and looking for a more comprehensive training opportunity. Rather than offer the couple of day classes combined with evening classes, it was decided to do entire days of training. Those days turned into a week long course which after the first was christened ‘Hell Week’.

Hell Weeks were initially held when enough regional students were visiting and then they became a set program 4 times a year during the school term breaks. Students who completed the Hell Week were presented with a certificate of attendance as well as a commemorative ‘survivor’ T-shirt. Training each day ran from 9am through to 4pm with a break for lunch, and a chance to relax before the evening classes kicked off at 5pm.

There is a little story behind the survivor T-shirt as well. The original design was graciously borrowed from Master JR West from a T-shirt design of his. The interesting fact is that in over 10 years of Hell Weeks there has never been a T-shirt combination repeated. Each T-shirt has a different combination of shirt and/or ink colour, including the one for this week.

I will be adding follow up posts each day on what material was covered along with photos of some of the group.

Regards

M G