10-12-22 - From Red Belt to Black Belt congratulations to all of todays successful Graders

Today we witnessed a monster Grading at the USKA Fight Factory with all but one (Brown Belt) of the USKA Syllabus of 11 Grades contested.
Because we had two senior grades attempting USKA Junior Black Belt and one senior grade attempting USKA Black Belt 1st Dan it meant that two Grading examiners would be present in the form of USKA Senior Instructor Qasim Beg and USKA Chief Instructor Neil Kelly creating even more pressure for our Grading candidates with two sets of eyes on them in opposed to the usual one.
An USKA Grading assesses a students ability to perform every requirement of the syllabus for their particular grade and the grades previous to their own without error. It also takes into account what the student has done to get ready for that grade in terms of their attendance and their effort levels on their classes.
The old quote of 'If you fail to prepare, you are prepare to fail' should always be in the back of  students mind when training on their classes week in and week out getting ready for their examinations with there being a very real tangible chance of someone failing the Grading if they take it lightly or fail to prepare correctly.
A big grading translates to many hours on the mats and today was no exception with the grading in it's entirety lasting a whopping 8 1/2 hours, with 9 1/2 hours of mat time if you include the preparation warm up class before it.
Unfortunately today as with any real examination we witnessed some of our students not managing to reach the prescribed pass mark resulting in a failed attempt. This leads to initial disappointment of course but we hope that in feeling that disappointment that the student will go away, dust themselves down, make the necessary adjustments and come back next time learning and growing from the experience.
On the other end of the scale we had some students excel today passing as Star A Graders which is an amazing achievement given that we pride ourselves as having a very high bar and technical standard to meet.
Star Graders for today were Adam Ben Mansour 92 / A- (Red Belt), Mohammed Jamaal Hussain 96 / A (Red Belt), Rumaysa Mahmood 91 / A- (Green Belt), Shakeel Hussain 93 / A- (Junior Black Belt), Remy Man 93 / A- (Black Belt 1st Dan).   Special mentions must go to our three senior Grades taking their Black Belts. Shakeel Hussain passed his USKA Junior Black Belt with a grading result of 93 / A- , Sumayya Griffith passed her USKA Junior Black Belt with a grading result of 81 / B.
Finally we had Remy Mann pass his USKA Black Belt 1st Dan with a grading result of 93 / A- becoming only the 9th ever USKA Dan grade in over 26 years and only the 6th ever in USKA's modern era using it's current and more difficult criteria.
A big Congratulations to all our successful graders on receiving your new belts and taking a step further up the USKA development ladder.
Tomorrow see's our USKA Female Division take to the mats for their final grading of the year, best of luck to all who are taking part.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH CLIPS OF REMY MANN'S USKA BLACK BELT GRADING