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Grading
Saturday 19 December 2009 we had our end of year Grading & BBQ.
2009 was a great year for us. A number of gradings throughout the year have seen well prepared students advance to their next grade & in one case Mohamad jumped a grade,
This year we have grown by 6 Black belts & 11 Kyu Grades were promoted.
This year Sensei Rob Dobson selected the recipient for the Wally Szlagowski Award. The award is based on the performance on the day of one student. This year the award went to Ziggy Szlagowski (Wally's Son) & was well earned!19th Dec 2008 Grand Master Wally officiated at our Senior Dan Grading, as coincidence would have it, 1 Year to the Day his son Ziggy was promoted to 1st Dan Black Belt.
All students were well prepared, fighting was spirited & all students put on a good Kata demonstration, including Sai Kata.
Breaking techniques are required for 1st Dan but a lot of the Kyu grades demonstrated brick breaking for added points toward their grading.
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| Shihan's Award ~ Joel Harty | Grand Master Wally Szlagowski Award & Best Kata ~ Ziggy Szlagowski | Black Belt's Award's Outstanding Dedication |
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| Black Belt Award ~ Most Improved | Black Belt Award Best fighter | Black Belt Award ~ Best Ground work |
| Ziggy Szlagowski | 1st Dan | Kayla Galayini | 1st Dan |
| Joel Harty | 1st Dan | Janelle Woo | 1st Dan |
| Mohamad Azimi | 1st Dan | Mathew Reitchstein | 1st Dan |
| Ali Azimi | 2nd Kyu | Farhad Azimi | 2nd Kyu |
| Cooper Jones | 5th Kyu | Emma Jones | 4th Kyu |
| Brooke Jones | 4th Kyu | Robert Kowalczyk | 5th Kyu |
| Jessie Lyons | 4th Kyu | Christopher Marciano | 2nd Kyu |
| Eamon McCarthy | 3rd Kyu | Muaaz Syed | 2nd Kyu |
| Michael Woo | 1st Kyu |
Peter Laszlo Visits out Club
It was a great honour to have Peter Laszlo visit or Club on the Friday 4th September 2009. Peter was a member of the Blacktown & Judo Club. Peter studied Judo then switched to Karate & trained under Grand Master Wally Szlagowski in both forms. Peter was awarded the No.2 Patch from Japan after passing his Black Belt examination.
This is Wally Szlagowski's patch.
Peter had the number 2
under the red fist
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The night started out by Peter started giving hints from the side line as the students went through their punches. It didn't take long for the Worrier to come out. Soon he had the class doing hard punches, Elbow strikes & blocks up & down the hall. The old hard style approach re-passed onto the next generation of martial Artists.
Click on Thumbnail for larger picture
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CLUB PATCH
New Club patches are available to all financial club members at a cost of $10.00 Each.
TAMESHIWARI
The club breaking patch is now available to all students who have successfully performed a break. Cost is $13.00 per patch.
Twenty five years ago a I started the Blacktown Dragons' Karate Club. The membership was limited as I could only accommodate so many people in my 20'x20' garage. The training was based on reality. Hard training, cut out the fancy stuff & develop techniques & power. Not to many new starter's stayed, They found it difficult to handle the intensity & variety of the training. Some only came one night never to be seen again!
Our first Black belt was Greg Wiggins. After 4 hard years of training & bruises he got his 1st Dan. A hard way to earn a coloured belt.
We had by 1994 three groups training in and around the garage, one in the garage, one in the drive way & one group doing Judo on a bit of canvas in the back yard & we would rotate through the various stages.
It was now time to move into a hall. We started looking for more students before we opened at Quakers Hill Public School. Some students, once again came & went. Not too many students could handle the Judo/Karate combination, but we thought it would be worth perusing. So in 1995 we opened at Quakers Hill Public School's Hall. The School principal, Anne Malchay assisted greatly in the hall hire rates so we could offer lessons as a community service. Then the lesson cost was by donation. students would place into a tin what they could afford. Not a good way to get rich as the donations most times didn't pay for the hall hire.
Over the years the club has obtained equipment by donations from Peter Wood & Gabi Galayini. Money received from training fees went to increase our equipment. Now we have a well equipped club with rice straw Judo mats, jigsaw mats, sai, bo, swords, boxing gloves, bag mitts, focus mitts body armour, punching bags, skipping ropes, training knives & of cause the ever popular breaking table.
Over the years we have grown, influence from other black belts from various styles & continually evaluating our approach to our art has developed into a club that has a lot to offer in training, self defence & the classical martial arts.
Keep watching the news letter for more information.
Neil Ohlenkamp has agreed to let us link to his Judo page. Neil's web page would have to be the best source of information on Judo techniques & information on the web today. Try it out ! click on the link below or go to our links page.
See you at the dojo