06/03/2026
As we bring this week’s training to a close we reflect on the first few months of the year. With promotions within our instructors, a brilliant seminar with Eleni Sensei, and lots of dedicated training from our students, including our prospective Dan grades.
Becoming a Yudansha (black belt) is sometimes viewed as the end of a long road or climbing a mountain, but really it is the beginning of a new path. It does not mark the end of learning, rather an understanding of how to learn, an achievement, absolutely, but also a realisation that this new path leads to a new destination, one that is more than just a path, one that branches and opens to new possibilities, ways of thinking and experiences.
We believe that you absolutely become a black belt, through years of learning, practice and experience, it is not something given lightly, but earned.
So for those that are attempting their first or second Dan grade this weekend, we wish you all the luck in the world and to remember something that our Sensei once said, Nanakorobi yaoki or Fall seven times, stand up eight. Don’t give up, you can do this!
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