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shotokanman70
shotokanman70's picture
8th Kyu/Yellow Belt Test Breakdown

Greetings, pragmatic karate-ka!

I am excoted to share this with you all. I have left my large Shotokan karate organization for the World Combat Association. I recently tested nearly 60 beginner students under the new curriculum I recently wrote. Students were evaluated in seven groups over the course of four days. This video is a breakdown of a recent 8th kyu/yellow belt grading. The test is about 90 min long in duration (the written component is extra) and is incredibly thorough. Skills covered include: kihon, kata, pad work, tegumi and kumite drills, clinch work, kata oyo, nage waza (throwing), newaza (ground fighting), scenario drills, basic weapons defense, lots of live training and more. The skills students are required to demonstrate is radically different from the 3K syllabus I used in the past for promotion purposes and is more reflective of my vision for practical karate. It took about a year to write the curriculum from beginner to shodan level. There were a lot of requirements to be met for a syllabus to be approved by the WCA. Shout out to Iain Abernethy for his support during this process.

The students shown in the video were enrolled in my Martial Arts 11 course at Charles P. Allen High School. Martial Arts 11 is a physical education credit at CPA in Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada. To learn more about the course, read my blog post, https://appliedshotokan.com/the-inclusion-of-karate-in-the-public-school-system/

Cheers

Andy Allen

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Great video and thank you for sharing! It’s great to see the syllabus in action. Well done to all involved! In other news, I’ve got a lot of certificates in the post that I need to sign and send to Canada :-)

All the best,

Iain

Les Bubka
Les Bubka's picture

Awesome work Andy.

MichielC
MichielC's picture

Fantastic, Andy. Well done to you and your students. How long did it take for them to develope these skills?

shotokanman70
shotokanman70's picture

These students took my martial arts 11 course at the high school I teach at. They trained 4-5 times/week for 3.5 months. You can read about the course here if you like... https://appliedshotokan.com/the-inclusion-of-karate-in-the-public-school-system/

MichielC
MichielC's picture

Great read, Andy. Good work. Amazing progress by your students in just 3.5 months.