From Mr. Boozer:
First of all, KICS wishes everyone a Happy New Year!!! After our annual BB Planning Meeting, here are the updates for 2019. I will update this post accordingly if I missed something.
1) Mrs. Lozano has already called up the first 25 students on the wait list. She will call more if those students to not confirm their invitation to join KICS.
2) The instructors have rotated, so here are the new BB lineups (with brown belt assistants):
- White: Mr. Siska, Ms. Rose (Mr. Hawpe, Mr. D. Hedges, Mr. D. Smith)
- Gold: Mr. Edwards, Mr. Crouch (Mr. E. Hedges, Mr. Meek, Mr. Nick Stone)
- Orange: Mrs. White, Mr. Nate Stone (Ms. S. White)
- Green/Blue: Mr. Boozer, Mrs. Lozano (Mr. C. Smith, Mrs. Hedges)
- Floating Instructors: Mr. Schwalbe, Mr. White, Ms. K. White, Mr. Pigg
- White: Mr. Siska, Ms. Rose (Mr. Hawpe, Mr. D. Hedges, Mr. D. Smith)
- Gold: Mr. Edwards, Mr. Crouch (Mr. E. Hedges, Mr. Meek, Mr. Nick Stone)
- Orange: Mrs. White, Mr. Nate Stone (Ms. S. White)
- Green/Blue: Mr. Boozer, Mrs. Lozano (Mr. C. Smith, Mrs. Hedges)
- Floating Instructors: Mr. Schwalbe, Mr. White, Ms. K. White, Mr. Pigg
3) We restart classes on Jan 8, and we will have a make-up minor belt test on Jan 19 for a few students that were unable to attend the Dec test.
4) We will move upper belt (testing for Brown and Black) to April and Oct in order to avoid summer activities and winter weather issues. That will also cause us to move our semi-annual breaking days to early February and late-Aug or early Sept. White belt and minor belt testing formats remain unchanged.
5) We feel that attending at least one tournament a year is extremely important. Instead of a dedicated team, we will be use our time and financial resources to work with anyone that wishes to attend a tournament to better prepare and help offset the tournament costs. This will allow more people to prepare for and attend a tournament without a season-long commitment. There are some details to work out, and we will discuss more once classes have resumed. Don't forget that the 1st tournament of the year is in Tulsa on Jan 26, so sign up now!!
6) We have implemented a few changes to our belt requirements for this year:
- We plan on giving a piece of paper notifying students of their test date and other details that they can give to parents or other family members.
- We will be adding the thrust kick, especially due to its effectiveness in sparring.
- Once a white belt has learned everything except self-defense - and a BB instructor has approved - we will start teaching those students step-sparring so that they are ready for full sparring starting at the gold belt level. That means that all Gold belts will do regular sparring.
- One steps: any made-up 1-steps should leave the attacker incapacitated, either by chokes, take downs, ground strikes, distance, or any other factor as deemed by the BB's. When in doubt --> Ask.
- Upper Belt class format will change a bit such that BB's and brown will work together more at the same time and in small groups so that we can both teach and participate. Another benefit will be finding subtle differences in technical areas and unify our techniques.
- We plan on giving a piece of paper notifying students of their test date and other details that they can give to parents or other family members.
- We will be adding the thrust kick, especially due to its effectiveness in sparring.
- Once a white belt has learned everything except self-defense - and a BB instructor has approved - we will start teaching those students step-sparring so that they are ready for full sparring starting at the gold belt level. That means that all Gold belts will do regular sparring.
- One steps: any made-up 1-steps should leave the attacker incapacitated, either by chokes, take downs, ground strikes, distance, or any other factor as deemed by the BB's. When in doubt --> Ask.
- Upper Belt class format will change a bit such that BB's and brown will work together more at the same time and in small groups so that we can both teach and participate. Another benefit will be finding subtle differences in technical areas and unify our techniques.
KICS is looking forward to a FANTASTIC 2019!!
