The 9th Aylesbury Scouts have let us know that they will be needing to use the hall on Friday 10th May 2024 as the Scouts will be holding a sleepover that night, meaning there will be no classes that week!
Our ‘Opening times‘ page has been updated to reflect this.
Hello everyone, we hope you had a restful Christmas and New year.
Regretfully we have to announce that some of our prices will be increasing. We have held these off as long as we could, and have not had to increase the prices we charge in nearly 4 years.
The mat fee’s are increasing by 50p for both children’s and adults classes:
The prices for our gradings are also increasing:
| Belt | Children’s (Juniors) | Adults (Seniors) |
|---|---|---|
| ‘White‘ to ‘Green‘ belts | £31 | £36 |
| ‘Blue & White‘ to ‘Brown & White‘ belts | £36 | £46 |
| ‘Brown‘ belt | £30* | £40* |
| ‘Black & White’ belt (juniors) / ‘Black’ belt (seniors) | £70** | £135** |
* The grading fee includes the cost of a sew on patch which is a WJJF grading requirement. There is no patch required for the Brown or Black belts so the cost of the patch is removed.
** Black belt grading’s for both juniors and seniors are held at the WJJF national headquarters in Oldham, Manchester, UK. These gradings are held twice a year usually at the end of March/early April and again end of September/early October. These events start early in the day, and given the distance from Aylesbury to Manchester (approximately 182 miles) it is recommended that you factor in travel and overnight accommodation costs as well.
Our FAQ page ‘What are the costs?‘ has been updated to reflect these changes.
I’m sorry to announce that this weeks class are cancelled due to sickness.
Sensei Julia is unavailable tonight which would have left me running the class. However I have picked up a nasty stomach bug and am not well enough to coach.
As the only two club coaches we are the only ones who can legally run the classes.
This means that our next week of classes will be next year, starting from Friday 12th January 2024.
– Sensei Adam.
On November 7th, 1920, in strictest secrecy, four unidentified British bodies were exhumed from temporary battlefield cemeteries at Ypres, Arras, the Asine and the Somme. None of the soldiers who did the digging were told why. The bodies were taken by field ambulance to GHQ at St-Pol-Sur-Ter Noise. Once there, the bodies were draped with the union flag.
Sentries were posted and Brigadier-General Wyatt and a Colonel Gell selected one body at random. The other three were reburied. A French Honour Guard was selected and stood by the coffin overnight of the chosen soldier overnight.
On the morning of the 8th November, a specially designed coffin made of oak from the grounds of Hampton Court arrived and the Unknown Warrior was placed inside. On top was placed a crusaders sword and a shield on which was inscribed:
“A British Warrior who fell in the GREAT WAR 1914-1918 for King and Country“.
On the 9th of November, the Unknown Warrior was taken by horse-drawn carriage through Guards of Honour and the sound of tolling bells and bugle calls to the quayside.
There, he was saluted by Marechal Foche and loaded onto HMS Vernon bound for Dover. The coffin stood on the deck covered in wreaths, surrounded by the French Honour Guard.
Upon arrival at Dover, the Unknown Warrior was met with a nineteen gun salute – something that was normally only reserved for Field Marshals.
A special train had been arranged and he was then conveyed to Victoria Station, London. He remained there overnight, and, on the morning of the 11th of November, he was finally taken to Westminster Abbey. The idea of the unknown warrior was thought of by a Padre called David Railton who had served on the front line during the Great War. The union flag he had used as an altar cloth whilst at the front, was the one that had been draped over the coffin.
It was his intention that all of the relatives of the 517,773 combatants whose bodies had not been identified could believe that the Unknown Warrior could very well be their lost husband, father, brother or son…
THIS is the reason we wear poppies.
We do not glorify war.
We remember – with humility – the great and the ultimate sacrifices that were made, not just in this war, but in every war and conflict where our service personnel have fought – to ensure the liberty and freedoms that we now take for granted. Every year, on the 11th of November, we remember the Unknown Warrior.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.
Hello Everyone. We a few pieces of news to share today.
1) Gradings
The first is that we will be holding our next gradings on Friday 1st December 2023!
Now for the important details:
The grading will run during normal class times, meaning we will need all students to be prompt and on time for classes so that we have enough time to grade all students.
Grading fee’s will need to be in 2 weeks beforehand with your Budo pass on Friday 17th November. We can accept cash or cheques (made payable to ‘J Davies’) but not any credit or debit cards.
As a reminder, here are the grading fee’s for both classes:
| Juniors (Children’s class) | Seniors (Adults class) |
|---|---|
|
|
You will also need to make sure your patches are sewn onto your Gi in the correct location(s), which can be found here:
Lastly, we will be doing some ‘Mock’ gradings between now and the actual grading to help students judge their own progress as well working out where they may still need to practice.
2) New Junior Syllabus
Some of you may have seen or heard about the new WJJF syllabus, which we haven’t talked about much in class because we had not seen the new syllabus.
This week Sensei Julia received our copy of the new Junior syllabus which she has shared with the other coaches. There are some new additions such as some specific vocabulary to learn, but for the most part it appears the changes are to introduce things in a more logical order or to clarify minor points.
You will be glad to hear that as we have only just received the new syllabus we will be following the old syllabus for our upcoming grading. After this grading we will begin teaching the new syllabus.
3) Website
We have implemented a very minor website change – when subscribing to receive our posts via email, you can now choose to only receive specific categories. We only use two main categories, ‘News‘ and ‘Asides and Others‘, but it does now mean that you can filter out things like lost property announcements, or news posts like this one.
4) 19 Years!
Yesterday (November 1st 2023) marks the clubs 19th birthday! And 17 years since Sensei Adam first joined the club…
