Super six seal their black belts (From Kidderminster Shuttle)

Super six seal their black belts

2:00pm Friday 2nd November 2012 in Local

SIX students from Bewdley TAGB Taekwondo Club came through their black belt gradings with flying colours.

Shaun Mayall, Grace Bentley-Hughes, Pippa Lock, Joshua Sheppard, Alex Basset, and Georgia Doohan-Smith attended a three-day bi-annual event in Bristol and were put to the test, as they demonstrated their speed and precision of techniques and battled each other through fast paced routines and sparred with each other in combat.

The journey to black belt has not always been an easy one and many of the youngsters have had their individual struggles to overcome.

Shaun Mayall had his arm badly broken at the elbow not long after he started the martial art, but he refused to let it stop him.

Six years on and numerous operations later, he has stuck at his training, and despite his elbows being permanently 45 degrees misaligned he has shown amazing indomitable spirit for one so young and never lets it hold him back.

The six stars travelled to Ellowes Hall Sports College to receive their results last week.

As one of the few remaining Taekwondo schools who are graded externally by a panel of national examiners, it was not for instructors to decide their student’s fate.

It was one of the highest graded black belts in the world, master Paul Donnelly, who travelled to deliver the results and present the awards in front of hundreds of students, friends and family.