‘Smashed it’ - Lisa and Vickie earn black belts

TWO students with a West Fife martial arts club have become the first to achieve black belt gradings after having started with their ‘ladies only’ classes.

Lisa Eadie and Vickie de Vries, who train with Fife Kickboxing and Self Defence Academy, successfully reached the milestone on Saturday, October 28, after an intense and emotional six-hour day.

The duo, who are aged 49 and 53 respectively, are the first two women to progress from the club’s ladies classes, which began five years ago as a way of encouraging more women to get fit, active, learn martial arts and how to defend themselves, delighted head instructor, Craig Reid.

“It’s been a long time in the making,” he said.

“They’ve been training with us for about five years and, through that time, we’ve had the pandemic, we’ve had all the online-training that we did for that time where we were locked down. They continued to train throughout that and, even the return to physical training, was phased and difficult, and it took a little bit of re-adjusting.

“They’ve both done tremendously well. They’ve done brilliantly.

They’ve been so persistent and just showing an awful lot of grit and determination to see this through. It’s been fantastic and it’s been emotional.

“We were at the grading for about six, six-and-a-half hours, and we took them through everything, from all the skillsets that we teach the beginners, through each stage and each belt. They had to demonstrate a proficiency at all of those levels.

“It’s not a single event in the sense that you just come in and work hard; they really have had to practice and master a whole bunch of skills, and then demonstrate that back to us.

“What we have here is two older athletes; Lisa’s late 40s, and Vickie’s early 50s. We’re definitely not looking for a comparison between older athletes and maybe a teenager, but we do help them, we train with them, and we’re looking for them to be at their personal best for the day. They both smashed it; they were in very good shape.”

Throughout November, Fife Kickboxing and Self Defence Academy, which is based within Castle Business Centre, on Queensferry Road, Dunfermline, are running ladies self defence classes.

They are free to non-members, but booking is essential.

For more information, find Fife Kickboxing and Self Defence Academy on Facebook, or visit https://fifekickboxing.co.uk/.