For our first Winter Grading, there were plenty of deserving belts to be awarded. We still had something of a backlog from the last grading, with several people who weren’t able to make it back in June. After a great two hour seminar from Kev on throws and leglocks, the promotions began with one of those longtime students, Matt Robinson. He has been with us from almost the beginning, starting when he was around 12 years old.
Matt was followed by six blue belts, including his mother. Tracey has been an absolutely central part of Artemis BJJ pretty much since the club started. She’s done a lot behind the scenes, worked really hard on her jiu jitsu, stepped up to teach the kids class and also competed for the first time last weekend.
It was also great to see two of the stalwarts from the daytime open mat sessions receive their blue belts, Heidi and Rich M. The daytime sessions have really grown over the past year, contributing to the club’s overall growth spurt in 2017. Big Marcus, Steve M and Sam L all earned a promotion to blue too: for a full list of the current blue belts (with links to their promotion videos), head over to our BJJ rank page.
The promotions didn’t end with blue. There were a lot of higher belts to give out as well. Two of our instructors were upgraded to purple, Paul and Rich, who have both been a major part of Artemis BJJ. Not only do they run their own sessions at the club, they also ensure the classes run smoothly when Can is away. Eugeniu also earned his purple belt, after four years of training at various schools around the world (including his native Moldova). Finally, Can was promoted to brown belt by Kev.
As has become tradition, we headed off for a delicious meal at Pieminister afterwards. Thanks again to Kev!