Special Guests from Oz visit Tonga for Gradings!

This time around for gradings the kids had the extra pressure of Master Paul and Chief Instructor Josh over from Australia to conduct the yearly assessment. This is a big thing for the entire Branch and made for a long and adventurous weekend. They were accompanied by three other black belts and a Blue belt, so they made a holiday of their 4 day stop over. Both Emily and Dylan did a great job and ended up attaining their Blue tips after 9 mths of training. Additionally, they both got to break a board each - flying side kick over one person (victim), they were over the moon. After the gradings we also had Wayne, a blind Judo instructor take us through some Judo moves and then Chief instructor Mark conducted knife defence training. A long day indeed. The following day we all headed over to Pangi for a day of recovery and to show them another small sample of the sights of Tonga. Satisfaction was available so we took some extra people over on her then later in the day we used her for some knee boarding and snorkelling .

Em doing some bag work with Master Paul.

Dylan with a great front kick.

Pattern time, Faisi also graded with the kids.

Ruha with one of her last breaks for her black belt.

Yvane successfully passed his 2Dan grading. Even with a massive chunk of his foot missing from a slip up on the first break. A big day for the entire Tonga branch.

The family shot after the gradings. The kids wouldn't let go of their broken boards and Master Paul even signed them.

A successful grading for the entire Tonga Branch.

Sia and Lisiata' (Richard) totally enjoyed the Judo session.

Once the Judo was over we moved onto Knife defence.

Mercy stabbing himself! With a little help but there's only his prints on the knife!

What better way to recover than to take everyone out to Pangi on a Sunday.

Master Paul showing his talent on the knee board. Everyone from Oz had a go, even Wayne (blind Judo Instructor)

They even got to chase Dory and Nemo around for a while.

Even Jodie was enjoying yet another cleansing ale on the deck. The same deck she only minutes prior ripped her foot open on or as we say now "Did an Yvane!"

While some rested, the more energetic ones swam out to the wreak and dove off it for a while.

After a day in the sun at Pangi and being a Sunday we hosted a farewell feast at our place. One of the boys even bought a pig for the BBQ. We had several interesting games of world championship (yeh no one in this group is at all competitive!!!) pool, darts and even......

Master Paul did have the honor of carving the pig. Knife defence?

You wouldn't pick this but world championship Chess which turned into checkers later on. Amazingly I didn't loose any pieces?

By the end of the night no one was ready to say goodbye. The girls from Canberra were already booking in for next year, they couldn't believe how much fun and how good a friends they had made in just a 4 day visit. Best we train even harder to keep up the good impressions.