Congratulations to Ms Chanthie Thach, 3rd Dan & Ms Zharna Letfus, 1st Dan!!
Chanthie received an A Pass, missing out on a distinction by 2%
For further information from the grading
http://itfnz.org.nz/events/gradings/dan/grad-bb0905-a.htm
“Sweat, blood and broken bones” – by Chanthie Thach (II Dan)
Last weekend (9-10th May), Zharna Leftus and I tested for our 1st and 3rd degree black belts respectively, alongside 22 friendly candidates from the Auckland region. The grading was hosted and well-organised by the Papatoetoe “Dragon’s Spirit” Taekwon-Do Club at De La Salle College, and we were fortunate to have been tested by three Examiners (normally two Examiners) – Master Paul McPhail, Master Mahesh Bhana and Mr Peter Graham.
On the first day, Saturday, we had to arrive at the grading venue at 8am to get ready and warmed up before the commencement of the grading. At 9am the Examiners were warmly welcomed into the grading, with Master McPhail introducing the Examiners and opening the grading. Without hesitation, Master McPhail started with line work then patterns. We performed Saju Jirugi and Saju Makgi about 15 times each, and then we finally progressed to the first pattern of the day – Chon-Ji Tul. The line work assessed our techniques and individual capacities. In the first 10 minutes you could hear heavy breathing, see people wiping sweat from their foreheads and shaking off the pain felt in their arms after doing about 50 forearm rising blocks! Master Bhana then took over the grading, and continued with line work and patterns. We performed all the coloured belt patterns together, and then the class was slowly divided with the 1st and 2nd Dans performing their black belt patterns. We were probably two hours into the grading when Mr Graham took us through pad work and MORE line work. At this point, some of the candidates were feeling the pain – Panadol was passed around, people bowed out to stretch…I had to stop and relieve myself from the pain of a stitch and put a plaster on my knuckle! Then at 12pm, we finally bowed out for lunch.
In the next session, we did all levels of step sparring and self-defense, changing partners frequently in our lines. Then the Masters performed their first official round of testing, starting with patterns. I and another candidate testing for 3rd degree were up first, and the rest of the group were moved to the end of the hall and they proceeded through their patterns with Mr Graham. I was tested on three patterns – Won-Hyo, Juche and Kwang-Gae. Zharna was the 5th group to be tested, and from the corner of my eye she was looking good and sharp! Because the first testing was complete, everyone started to relax and get on with the grading. The next testing session was free sparring (“one on one” and “two on one”), self-defense – I partnered Zharna and we worked really well together, and step sparring. During my self-defense testing, Amanda Insull was allowed into the grading area and we started to prepare mentally for our “non-prearranged” self-defense stick routine. After 2 minutes of doing our routine, Master McPhail stopped us and replaced Amanda with self-defense guru Mr Steve Pellow (6th Dan). I was extremely scared, and I was hoping that Amanda was still standing in front of me. BUT as I looked up, there was Mr Pellow looking down at me with a stick in his hand ready to attack. My heart pounded quite fast, and Mr Pellow commenced his attacks and somehow I managed to pin him to the ground three times. The Examiners wanted to put my self-defense abilities to the test, and when I heard “Gumman (stop)” I felt so relieved and also happy with my performance. After this, the 1st Dans and 1st Gups did their speciality breaks. Zharna did two of her breaks, she convincingly got the flying side piercing kick however missed her flying high kick.
The final session of the day was the fitness test – press ups, sit ups, pad rounds and the 2.4 km run. Both Zharna and I did well in the press up and sit ups, achieving almost full points. In the pad rounds, we had different partners and performed three rounds of intense kicking and punching. At this time, you could feel the energy and the candidates were all encouraged by this, they all worked hard and yelled with their techniques. The Examiners had been observing for the first two rounds and in the final round they assigned points to each candidate. They did this to see whether we had the same intensity and power from the first round. We were all so tired, but the final test and last assessment of the day was yet to be done – the 2.4km run. With 5 minutes to get ready, we were all out in the foyer and were given directions of the route. Our Head Instructor, Ms Thu Thach had been waiting outside and gave us support before the run. The run was pretty much a flat run on the streets for 1.2km then return to the starting point. I was so tired, my muscles were aching, and during the run I was contemplating where the half-way mark was. Zharna was not far away from me! So after 14 minutes I crossed the finished line, and crashed landed into Ms Thach. Then the rest of the group came sprinting in along with Zharna.
The next day, Sunday, we arrived at 8am, sore but happy to see each other. The Do-Jang was being set-up for the afternoon’s public session, and everyone was on the side-line cramming for the written exam. The organisers of the grading led us into the room for the written examination, and waited for the Examiners to arrive. They came in and told us about the schedule of the morning, and this consisted of me talking to the class about my essay, a talk from each Examiner and it included such topics as the history of Taekwon-Do, ITF politics and understanding the “Do”. The Examiners then passed each of us our written exam and this was followed by the oral exam. Shortly afterwards, we were free to prepare for the final grading examination. From our club, Ms Thach, Bjarne, Mervin, Truong and Jasmine were there to support us. We performed more patterns, Zharna performed her self-defense, step-sparring, free sparring and Amanda and I performed our pre-arranged free sparring which went really well, it was our best performance yet! Then we did our breaks, I got three of my breaks, reverse knifehand, reverse turning kick and mid-air kick but missed the flying consecutive kicks. Zharna got her side piercing kick and her downward punch on the tiles, but unfortunately also fractured her knuckle in the process (she had surgery the following Monday for it, and will be out of training for a month!). The grading ended with us all bowing out, and hugging all our friends and family who came to support us.
It was such a hard but fun grading. We both worked really hard, and we were happy with our performance over the weekend. I was happy to be grading alongside one of our students, it was very special for me to see Zharna testing for her black belt. It is over…finally, and now we wait eagerly for our results. I would like to thank everyone at the Tamaki TKD Club for your support over the last 6 months, Amanda for being the best partner ever and Thu for her constant guidance. I look forward to training our senior belts for their grading in December 2009 and May 2010!
