Kyler has been training at the Buntingford Karate Club for nearly a year now and he has made some pretty impressive advances with his skillset.

Tonight was time for Kyler to bring all of that training together and grade for his next level, which is 8th Kyu in karate terms or Orange belt to the average Joe.

The previous week we all trained in class pretty much going over the orange belt syllabus for the benefit of Kyler so he pretty much knew what was coming when it came round to the grading, it was also a good opportunity to highlight any issues he might need to work on to improve ready for his 8th kyu grading.

So tonight before we headed to the dojo down in Buntingford I worked with Kyler on the two kicks he was struggling with, kekomi and keage which significantly improved the mistakes he was making!

He was definitely nervous on the way in the car but once we got there we continued to work on those kicks to drill it home and before long it was time to grade.

As we were quite early I decided to video his grading so he can have it to look back on and also to see the things he was doing that maybe needed a little work on, you can see the highlights in the video below.

I have to say for his age and level Kyler already looks like he is going to be a formidable opponent in Karate once he gets some size and real strength, his grading although not perfect, you’d never expect it to be at his age or level, was pretty awesome, if he was nervous it didn’t really show.

I’m pleased to say he passed with flying colours, with some pretty high scores across the board, well done Kyler, I am very proud of you 🙂