There are a lot of emotions here, a lot to unpack, so here we go. (Since I didn't get to perform the annual telling of this story at the end of the black belt grading this year, please bare with hearing it one more time, for context's sake.) In 2015, walking around a park with my best friend,...
Kahjok. In Korean, it means Family. Over the course of one hour and forty three minutes, we saw most everything that comes with family take place during the all-Black Belt grading. This was only fitting, seeing as we had a father and son (Stan and Alex), along with brother John ...
There is something about watching a wee little white belt child perform their pattern that...it heals your soul. As we get older, we have memories of our past, however sometimes we mistake "memory" for what I refer to as "conscious knowledge". The difference between the two is that one is literal,...
Inclusion. One of the aspects of the club that we have been proud to build and develop over our first three years is the fact that anyone can walk through our doors. This past year the open-door policy included welcoming a local Karate club whose students were going to compete in an "Open" ...
We recently hosted the first of our two gradings in our calendar year last Thursday. Five students who put in the time from Day 1 this year were given the opportunity to grade and show that they were ready to take the next step in their development. It never fails to catch me when I see a young ...
The first of the two end-of-year tests was Phoenix's first-ever all-Black Belt grading on June 8th. I had the privilege to not only test for my 3rd Dan (Degree) Black Belt, but far more importantly to me, to do so with four longtime students. Students who had started as young as four and six years ...
Each student had a maximum of two gradings this year. With twenty students, it would have been easy to run several tests, like most clubs do, however Phoenix is not a club concerned with trophies or trophy belts. So when we do have a grading, it's honestly fantastic. When I say “fantastic”, I ...
We finished our first year with a belt test and potluck. This will be an ongoing tradition to mark the end of every year, because it is a great, fun way to recognize everyone's hard work, both throughout the year and at the test itself. The Black Belt Table for the evening was a very special one for...
Roy Conrad is the first individual from Phoenix Martial Arts to successfully achive the rank of Black Belt. To prepare for his two-part black belt test, Roy started doing what we call “two-a-days”, where he would train twice a day, six days a week. We made great use of Master Thabit's book ...
We recently held our Winter Belt Test, featuring five students ranging from White Stripe to Red Belt. Over the course of 90 minutes everyone was put through their paces, showing off their required rank skills which featured a variety of kicks, blocks, patterns, and self-defense. Every student walked...