TeAshiDo 10 years Celebration - Sunday April 10th 2010

On Sunday April 10th we celebrated 10yrs of Te-Ashi-D0 Karate under the Instruction of Sensei Andy Major 5th Dan, senior students and their wifes / parteners went to Cafe Unico the Italian restaurant in Epping to mark the event.The club has gradually got bigger over the years and now with the help of senior students the standard has risen quite a lot. One of Sensei Andy's most senior Instructors is sempai Colin Blencowe who over the years has arranged many a quiz night and social event and runs hes own club in Hatfield Heath, Colin started out training to encourage hes son to keep on training but eventually hes son gave up and Colin carried on and in 2000 he got hes Black belt.

Over the next few years he had a few accidents at work which restricted hes ability to train at a regular pace due to back / knee and shoulder injuries he was unable to train at the high level he had reached but he kept on plugging away and trained when he was able to all the time maintaining hes sense of enthusiasm and humour for which he is well known never once begrudging any one who went on to achieve their Black belt grade and attain a higher grade than himself. 

So Sunday was the ideal opportunity for Sensei Andy to recognise and reward the effort and loyalty shown by Colin and dureing the evenings event he awarded Colin hes 2nd Dan, to say that Colin was shocked was an understatement its the first time that i've ever seen him speechless was verdict by everyone who all said that they thought that Colin totally deserved it.Im not the sort of person who would normally give out a grade but in this case it was the right thing to do if anyone puts their heart and soul into teaching or organising an event its Colin he is an assett to the club and i can't think of a nicer or more deserving person to recieve there 2nd Dan than Colin well done.

Lets look forwards to the next 10yrs .