Jim urges kids to go for Tokyo gold
Instructor hopes to inspire future Olympic stars
A Hamilton karate instructor hopes his latest black belt students will inspire some Olympic hopefuls in the future.
The martial art has been included in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and Hamilton Shotokan instructor Jim Kirkwood hopes his students or others will strike gold at some point in the future.
Talha Hassan and Edward Smith passed their 1st Dan gradings, Paul Alexander, Daniel Coffey and Reece Maxwell passed their 2nd Dan, and Megan Glancy passed her 3rd Dan.
Jim said: “The kids are all at different levels. For 1st Dan it takes three or four years, 2nd Dan is four or six years and 3rd is eight years.
“It’s a tremendous achievement, it takes many years of training, and for most of them it has been three or four times a week, so it has been very demanding.
“However, all of their hard work and dedication has paid off and I’m really pleased for them.”
Jim added: “The Tokyo 2020 Olympics has included karate, so hopefully seeing these kids doing so well gets people off their sofas and hopefully it inspires kids of the future, knowing that it could one day end up with them winning a medal.”
Other students at the Fairhill club went through kyu gradings and results were:
Red belt (9th kyu): Nyah Cortes, Mia Black, Alan Morton, Mia Ashton, Robbie Ashton, Logan Cortes.
Orange belt (8th kyu): Rhys Spence, Reece Bordan, Ryan Spence.
Green belt (6th kyu): Kris Murdoch, Aydin Mcmahon, Lewis Nelson.
Purple belt (5th Reid, Milly Jordan.
Purple and white belt (4th kyu): Mark Vosilius, Carrie Bulloch.
Brown belt (2nd kyu): Aaliyah Thompson, Ross Alexander.
Brown and white (1st kyu): kyu): Rachel Rachael Gallacher, Max Jordan.
Delighted Jim said: “Over the last three months they have all put in a tremendous effort and the standard on the day was very high.
“Hopefully they can all keep up those high standards for our next grading in March.”
Hamilton Shotokan Karate Club meets at South Lanarkshire Lifestyles in Fairhill, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 6.30pm to 7.30pm.
The first four lessons are free, to see if prospective students are likely to stick at it.
For more information visit www. hamiltonshotokan.co.uk or call Jim on 01698 325666 or 07719 323552.