Basingstoke Ju Jutsu Club
2022 End of year review
We survived 2022!
That was a difficult year for most people and unfortunately due to the current political and economic climate, several difficulties are still ahead of us. But, if one thing is clear from the last year, it is that together, we’ve all helped each other to be and feel supported. Huge thanks from me to Sensei's Steve and Wayne, for all the effort you put in. It is very much appreciated by me and everyone else at the club. All of this makes me very proud as it means you’ve all really taken to heart, some of the core aims of Mizu Ryu and acted on them in a real time of need, to selflessly help others.
This year saw Sal and Lenka get married, many congratulations again! 😊 A fantastic wedding, great weather, lovely location and they both looked FAB! It was great to be there to see it all happen, with Luca giving a great speech too. We wish you all many years of happiness x
Despite everyone feeling the pinch in times of financial hardships, we still managed to get together to raise funds and food donations to help others with our donations to the Trussell Trust Food Bank initiative.
Once again, thank you all very much for helping with this. It’s a worthy cause, unfortunately very much needed with millions of service users throughout the UK, many of whom are holding down full-time jobs yet still don’t have the available funds to feed themselves or their families.
Your help has really made a difference to the lives of others and you managed to do that whilst dealing with your own difficulties too, such is the kindness, generosity and good will of everyone at the club.
Covid was given an absolute thrashing as 1 week before, it decided to try getting in the way of our Demo at The Excel.
NOPE! I wasn’t having it! We managed to put on a great demo at MCM Comicon the biggest event of its kind in the UK. Some John Wick moves, some traditional techniques and a great deal of crowd involvement, as promised to the organisers. The Pop Asia area crew sent back glowing reports to the organisers and they have viewed the footage and wrote back to me saying they thought it was amazing and are looking forward to inviting us to do it again!
One thing I’ll say before we even get started……..if you join the demo team, stay in the demo team! It was an absolute nightmare constantly redesigning the input as one by one, people dropped out closer to the date.
What we managed to get together though, was fantastic and my huge thanks to all of you who took part, I couldn’t have done it without your help and many thanks to those who came to support us and who subsequently enjoyed such a great event.
Grade Promotions
We also saw a grading just about squeezed in before the end of the year. It was great to see many people ready to move along the grading syllabus. This year, I changed how this was done, by instigating rolling assessments, rather than leaving it to the traditional 1 day all or nothing grading. It’s been great to see the difference through the last few months, as everyone’s techniques have been improving. I’m looking forward to where we go from here as we’re now ready to move beyond where we were before the pandemic struck, which is fantastic!
I’m going to do the Grade and Award Presentations on Saturday 14th January, as most people should be back by then, so apologies for the delay, you’ll have to wear old belts till then, but it’s important to have as many of the club there as possible, to recognise the achievements of those who have passed their gradings and witness them getting their belts and certificates. I have set the next grading for March and this will be Old style – so an accumulative 1 chance / 1 day grading. Old style gradings mean you have to be able to demonstrate any and all techniques from all the grades below your current one, as well as for the grade you are being test for, which is why the gradings take longer as there’s more to demonstrate.
For now, here’s the official list of those who have passed so far: -
Juniors
Korra – Promoted to Red Belt 17/12/22
Charles – Promoted to Orange Belt 17/12/22
Sonny – Promoted to Green Belt 17/12/22
Dexter – Promoted to Green Belt 17/12/22
Casper – Promoted to Green Belt 17/12/22
Oscar – Promoted to Shodan-Ho (Black & Brown Belt) 17/12/22
Luca – Promoted to Shodan-Ho (Black & Brown Belt) 17/12/22
Chloe – Promoted to Shodan (Black Belt) 10/12/22
Seniors
Andi – Promoted to 8th Kyu (Yellow Belt) 17/12/22
Wayne Sensei – Promoted to Shodan (Black Belt) 10/12/22
Well done to all who have passed so far. I know there’s a couple who didn’t manage to finish yet, but there’s time. It’s been a difficult couple of years. In fact, this final assessment was done 3 years to the day, after the last one, so that shows you how long the road has been to recovering the positions on the grading syllabus.
I want to say a massive well done to Chloe for persevering, finding that tenacity and control to continue through what is one of hardest parts of the Black Belt grading. Chloe showed fantastic perseverance and strength of spirit in the randori section which, despite me telling everyone who does it, that it’s difficult not just physically, but mentally and emotionally too, it's still an ordeal to get through it without giving up. Not to miss out mentioning Wayne too, who, despite having had a very serious battle with Covid and being far from recovered, responded well to me making the most of the opportunity and ordering his randori session after Chloe’s without letting him know it was going to happen. He already passed every aspect of the Black Belt grading several years ago but injury and work meant he missed completing it for several years. He got through that so well as it would have been the most difficult thing he’s done physically, on his road to recovery from covid. Handled as well as I knew he would be able to, controlling his own natural panic response to the diminished lung capacity, without endangering anyone else by being careful to maintain that control of application.
I’m very proud of both Chloe and Wayne, you’ve joined an elite group of people by demonstrating knowledge, ability and spirit and have enabled me to keep the standard I set 29 years ago when our syllabus was founded. Everyone who has passed a Black Belt grading under me has experienced that same kind of test of knowledge and perseverance.
All of our Black Belts have that in common and I will never 'give' someone a Black Belt, because you can only earn it with your own hard work, determination and application of knowledge.
My Black Belts (Yudansha) have a tough standard to aim towards. I maintain that every Black Belt in our school, past and present, is someone that I know I could rely on, no matter the difficulty, to fight side by side with me if necessary. To not give up and to get back up and carry on even if they got knocked down. As an ex-doorman, that trust is of huge importance to me. That pressure testing proves the person who wears my Black Belt, is someone who I know will continue to try their absolute best in the most difficult situations. Even if our foe is stronger, that fact that our Yudansha, like me, will not give up and will keep trying, is far more important and comforting to know.
Obviously, this matter of tenacity, perseverance, persistent determination (as I like to call it!) is a transferable skill and there is something of a transformative process which happens on the way to and at the other end of a Black Belt test, for this and other reasons.
Safe to say, I place great importance on these grades.
They are worth more than the paper they are written on.
More than the belt we tie around our waists.
It is what we learn about ourselves, the barriers we push through and go beyond.
The compassion we harness simultaneously with the practice for ‘necessary potential harm’ and maintaining that balance for betterment of ourselves as well as others.
To demonstrate the truth of our conviction through perseverance and the trust that garners as a result.
All this and so much more, is what it means to be a Mizu Ryu Ju Jutsu Black Belt. Everyone who has ever earned one through our syllabus KNOWS they are worthy of it and rightly so.
For now, lets look ahead to a New Year, full of new possibilities.
Celebrating the successes of the last year and using that to strengthen our efforts to do even better this year.
Ganbatte!
