Successful Grading Results

At what was arguably the largest kyu grading event ever hosted in the Western Cape, students from the UCT Aikido Club put in a very good showing.

Held at the Mushindo Dojo in Cape Town, space was crowded on the tatami, the nerves and the sweat showed, but the standard of aikido was very pleasing.


We congratulate the following students who graded successfully to 6th kyu:

• Bianca Wagener
• Cameron Howie
• Karlind Govender
• Le Roux Steyn
  
• Matthew Segal &
  
• Muhle Maluleka

The following students successfully graded to 5th kyu:

• Apurva Kumar
• Barbara Herndler &
• Mark Truyens.

Well done all of you! You made us proud.

Change of Seasons Beach Training

In honour of the changing seasons, and since we have just said good-bye to the Zodiac sign of Pisces, we held our regular Sunday morning training on the soft white sands of Clifton's 3rd beach.

The early morning air was thick with sea spray, the thundering waves played a maritime march as background music to our training and the practice took on a particularly nautical theme: kokyo-nage and tenchi-nage flowed like the movement of the waves over the rocks...


As the sun rose and even one gigantic wave tried to join us where we were training on the shore, our attention turned to working with bokken and tanto and then finally to facing weapons unarmed.

We presented the regulars at Clifton with a peculiar sight, creating a lot of interest from passers-by.
We rounded off the session with some wicked ice-cream combinations from Sinn-full in Camps Bay. Autumn in Cape Town is still a special time....
Our next training outdoors will have to involve the mountains of Cape Town somehow :-)