The black belt grading at the weekend was a great affair,  a fabulous day whether watching or taking part. We had twelve candidates taking the grading and it was a full on day with the grading lasting over four hours. We would have probably gone on more but we were out of time. By the end everyone was tired, battered  and bruised. The grading is a real test and it’s my intention to have it as the gold standard for black belt gradings. Something to be proud of for the rest of your life and entry into an elite club where all have passed the same test. We regularly fail people even close friends. The standard is the standard  with no accommodation made for sex, injury or disability. We expect the candidates to show their knowledge of  JKD and Kali as part of the curriculum with all candidates expected to show great skill in boxing and kickboxing, JKD  and Jun fan trapping and kickboxing, Panantukan from Kali, some silat and a lot of thai boxing technique too. All in all they have to be a complete fighter. Not only do they have to know all this stuff in a technical sense they then have to show it in free play and in full contact sparring and last but not least the infamous two on one sparring. It’s here where they fight two of the seniors who’ve also been through this test for their black belt so they know how to test you. When you’ve got nothing left we want to see what you’ve got. What FIGHTING SPIRIT is left after everything else has gone. The twelve candidates: Husna Nessa, Barry Harte, Paul Clark, Julian gilmour, Benet brandreth, Richard Lee, John Lau,  Ben Mohammed, Jamie Hillman, Han ter park, Anil Waughray, and Graeme Mccormack were all outstanding though they all had their highs and their lows. Congratulations to all of you and many thanks to the thirteen senior who turned up to help with the assessment.

The Black belt grading will be held on September 11th from 10.30 until 3.00 in the great hall at Bancroft’s School Sports Centre, Woodford Green, Essex, IG8 0RF. The nearest tube is probably Woodford or Buckhurst hill. The guys have all been training hard so it will be interesting to see how they do on the day. To check eligibility talk to me in the classes. Our other gradings have been spectacular so we hope this one will be too. We always take everyone to the edge so that they are truly tested. It should be a fun day. Old seniors will be on the panel to adjudicate with me as usual.

We’ve been downloading stuff from the video camera and computer and putting it on youtube. There’s a number of clips on there at the moment. On youtube check out bob breen academy and you should be able to see everything that we’ve done. We’ll also be taking some film in the classes as everyone is looking good at the moment and generally doing more video clips to help your .  Here’s a clip to get you started.  Simple knife play
simple knife play http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj9NWUTKTLI

Enjoy!

Luton was the centre of the martial arts world last week at least from an Academy viewpoint. Foyzur Rahman was fighting in a Thai boxing match there, Carl Jackson was fighting in the national stickfighting squad training under grandmaster John Harvey (one of the academy’s first black belts) and Bob was teaching at the Filipino martial arts festival. The star of the show was definitely Foyzur who won in an amazing 58 seconds.  Not even enough to break a sweat. Academy coach Winston Fraser said he was amazingly composed despite all the bluster of his opponent. Bosh, bosh, job done.

Meanwhile Bob was teaching at the Filipino festival for the first time assisted by senior Carl Greenidge. Many of the leading teachers there were students of his or academy black belts so it was great fun catching up. Despite having to lecture his group on the right attitude and etiquette for martial arts in addition to technique it was a fun day. Carl meanwhile was getting himself ready for the forthcoming World championships.  A strange day. Luton! the centre of the universe.

We are starting a beginners course on Tuesday 21st of June at 6.30. This class will be taken by instructor Paul Clark and is open to beginners only. If you want to get started then come along and do your first free class. If you are already a member then just come along and jump in the class. For a second class dealing in fundamentals come along to the Thursday 6.30 class too. This class will be open to all grades but will concentrate on hard basics and conditioning. The path to Black Belt and beyond starts here.

As a special promo we are giving away a limited number of special autographed gloves to those who introduce a friend or friends.

The recent Big instructor camp was a huge success. On the first day we covered stick fighting as we’ve been focusing on Empty hands over recent camps. As usual the emphasis was to see the commonality between stick, Knife and empty hands fighting skills. There was plenty of sweat,  a few bumps and loads of laughter. The stick grappling that we focused on for half the time was huge fun and is a very interesting area. We’ll put some photos up on Facebook and on here. Some are blurred as it was all action (in truth we should have video’d it instead ). Over the rest of the time we covered empty hands and Filipino boxing and knife defence. As is usual at the BIG camps we sparred everything so that as an instructor you know it in theory and most importantly in practice. From double stick to boxing its’ important that you can ‘walk the walk’ and not only do the talk and theory part.  All in all a great weekend. Thanks to all the guys who came and made it a wonderful weekend.

If you’d like to take part in one of our future Instructor seminars then keep an eye on the events page. Please note. Due to the Olympics many of the bookings at SPACe  have been cancelled so we are busy negotiating new dates and venues.

Were starting a new class aimed at Black belts and senior students who will be going for their black belt grade soon. Seniors whether members or not are all welcome. The class will be in Chingford at the Peter May sports centre from 11.00 until 1.00. Cost is £8 for members and £10 all others. See you there. Hard training and good fun.

Peter May website: http://www.gll.org/centre/peter-may-sports-centre.asp

I’ve been off with a virus and we’ve had a plethora of bank holidays. We hadn’t factored these in when setting dates so I’ve pushed the date of the grading back a week to Thursday 26th May so we get a bit more time to practice. We’ll also be reinstating the  grading syllabus on this site as it got taken down in our last rebuild. If you have any questions regarding your grading eligibility or any technical questions don’t hesitate to email me at the club email above.

Congratulations to Carl Jackson who won Gold and British title in Veterens welterweight division single stick at the WEKAF British championships. As one of the founders of WEKAF it’s doubly joyful for me to see Carl dominating his category and to see his development as a great competitor and martial artist. Hopefully we’ll get carl to take some of the stick classes and enable him to pass on his hard won knowledge. Maybe we could get the band back together and go and dominate stickfighting as we did so successfully in the past.