Every three months, Master Steve conducts a grading session for the whole class, each grade taking turns to be tested, starting from the lowest grade (that’s me).

I happened to be in England when the grading was on, so decided to join in even though I felt I hadn’t attended enough classes yet.

Here are the senior guys, all in black, doing last-minute practice:

 

 

On the right are the newbies, in assorted colours, standing around discussing how nervous they are, lol:

 

 

Okay, to be fair, they did get serious after a while of standing around.

 

 

The newbies were the biggest group for this grading. There were eight of us! Or seven. Thereabouts. I was the only female in the newbie group.

 

 

Standing in formation waiting for further instruction:

 

 

Grading starts!

First set of tasks were done in a group. This was to test all our basic moves.

 

 

 

Some moves had to be done with a partner, so the senior students came to partner us. Why did I get the tallest guy when I was the shortest person in the group?!

 

 

And then we had to do our Fighting Form individually. That’s a short series of attack and defence moves.

 

 

Then back to group again for more basic moves. It just went on forever and ever!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was done and our turn to sit down and watch the rest do their gradings.

Okay, now, some photos of other people! They had more exciting stuff to do than us.

 

 

 

 

Piers. =P

 

 

 

 

 

And now the fun part…

I took a video of Piers chopping wood! Haha. For his grading, he had to do a three-inch punch and a chop.

He had never done it before the grading. Only seen others do it. So he took his time measuring the distance between fist and wood before doing the punch.

He ended up punching through to the floor and gouging out a piece of flesh from a knuckle. Eee!

Here’s the video:

 

 

A few more photos of the rest of the gradings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Piers and I both passed to the next grade, although I don’t know my marks yet. Piers got really high marks! Like 96% or thereabouts. So proud of him!

Hmm, really miss going to classes. My newbie classmates are moving on without me and I’ll miss the next grading because I won’t be in England then!

=(