New Black Belts

Over the past few months, there have been many first’s for the students and instructors, and today was maybe the biggest one yet. We held out first ever outdoor Black Belt Grading & Pre-test.

The coronavirus outbreak in Scotland meant the nation went into lockdown on 24th March, just a few weeks short of our planned annual black belt grading. This at the time, put an unknown delay for the students who were due to take the biggest test of their Taekwon-Do career to date in early April.

Fast forward 6 months, during which the candidates had been training regularly via Zoom, as well as outdoor & weekly one-to-one sessions as restrictions were slowly lifted, we planned the grading to be taken on the grounds outside of Integrity Martial Arts gym in Uddingston. We were fortunately blessed with a dry afternoon, which saw the candidates under go their respective gradings, whilst maintaining social distancing. This meant some obvious changes to the criteria to account for limitations, and some additions too. An extra challenge for everyone, one which they gladly accepted and overcame.

We are pleased to announce the following results;

Promoted to 1st Degree:

Gray Nisbet (Wishaw)

Lennon McAvoy (Wishaw)

Sam Jones (Wishaw)

Promoted to 2nd Degree:

Hayden McAvoy (Wishaw)

John Melrose (Integrity)

Scott Crooks (Livingston)

Congratulations on your well deserved promotions.

Pre-Test

We also held a pre-test for candidates looking to grading in April 2021, with the following completing:

Nathan Cowan (Wishaw), Despina Athanasiadou (Livingston), Lorna Singleton (Wishaw)