Category: promotions

I would like to congratulate the following members on their promotions. They all did an excellent job of demonstrating the skills necessary as well as contributing to the club by helping to teach others.

• Deven Huck: orange
• Aries Flores: orange/green
• Madelina Windishar: yellow

Congratulations to Q on his recent promotion to yellow/orange. He did a great job on his test. I hope this is just a continuation of his judo journey.
I also want to wish Q and Hal well on their extended trip to Mexico. I hope all goes well and we see them back soon.

The best part of being a judo sensei is seeing people learn judo.
The way we mark how much people are learning is through promotions.
The best promotion for me as a sensei is when a student gets their shodan.
This isn’t the end of learning in judo but the beginning, the new rank reflects a student’s sincerity and interest and deserves to be recognized. The black belt is such a recognition.

Congratulations to Chris and Josh on their promotions to sankyu.
It has been a long time coming for both of them but it is well deserved.

Sankyu

• Chris Flores
• Josh Hernandez

Promoting students is always my favorite part of teaching judo.
This time it was particularly memorable for two reasons.
First, this was the first set of promotions after the pandemic – these promotions had been waiting for more than a year. Second, three of these promotions are for shodan and above and these are always special as they represent milestones in the development of one’s judo.

Hal Hutchins to nikyu

Some photos from our recent promotions

Oh, I almost forgot Hal!

Congratulations to all of the following:
I look forward to many more promotions for all of you!

• Green:

• Daniel Sampey
• Andrew Meuer
• Harold Hutchinson
• Michael Foreman

Congratulations to all of the following:
I look forward to many more promotions for all of you!

• Ikkyu:

• Mike Smith

• Green:

• Christeena Miller

• Yellow:

• Nicholas Trofimchenko

• White/Yellow:

• Ian T. Sobkowiak
• Riley Snelson

The journey to Shodan is a long one and all of these students are well on their way.
Congratulations to all of the following:

• Orange/Green:

• Ryan Ruiz

• Orange:

• Alaina Gott

• Yellow/Orange:

• Montana Neal
• Isla Gott

• White/Yellow:

• Elan Eva
• Ashton Statmiller
• Felix Naipo
• Sonny Naipo
• Zoey Yacker

Just before the holidays, we held senior promotion testing. In the excitement of over eating and general excess, I forgot to post the results.

• Nikyu:

• Christopher B Mitchell

• Sankyu:

• Jacob T Gott

They both did a very nice job on the testing. It is rewarding to see students master techniques and refine their judo.