Kenpo – Orange belt grading

Last Thursday (30^th August 2012) I graded for my Kenpo Karate orange belt and was successful! I graded with Phil (going for his brown belt) and Mike (going for his orange belt too).

It’s the 2^nd Kenpo grading that I’ve done and I felt a lot more nervous this time around. I’m not sure why, but there were quite a few more things which I had to know and work on that it seemed like it was going to be much harder than I thought.

A quick summary of the items I had to work through:

·         Recitation of the Kenpo creed;
·         Demo Defence (defence against a set of pre arranged attacks);
·         Push drag footwork theory and demonstration;
·         Forearm pad round (demonstrating push drag footwork);
·         Kick shield round;
·         Yellow belt master techniques;
·         2 x random yellow belt reference techniques;
·         Orange belt master techniques;
·         2 x chosen orange belt reference techniques;
·         4 x 1 minute rounds of sparring;
·         Master Technique Scenario (Demonstrating Orange belt masters techniques)
·         Defence scenario

Overall, the main feedback that I received was that my technique was sharp and concise, but my sparring could definitely use some work.

The most significant feedback that I received was that I tend to drop my hands and that I look too low when I’m sparring.  Therefore, I tend to get hit a fair bit after I’ve thrown a kick or something.

Also got a few more items to cover, will do so in later posts!