Over the weekend, we welcomed North West Area Director of Examinations Pat Byrne, and Senior Examiner Simon Smith (both 6th Dans) to our club for a weekend of technical assessments. As Chris’s former coaches and friends of Richard, it had extra significance that they were able to visit the club and see how it was getting on.

The examinations were stringent, and involved knowledge of individual techniques, combinations, counters and katas. We are pleased that our brown belts, Sean, Paul and Nathan, all passed their Dan Grade theory, whilst Chris and Errol also progressed with completing the te