Danny Broughton 2^nd Dan

Hi Lena
The 2nd Dan thing was great fun. I have had the points for a while now. Reached the target by winning the Masters, so I thought it would be nice to round off a successful year by trying to get my 2nd Dan officially. Trouble is, I'm 'crap' at the theory!
I knew that the only way that I was going to pass a theory exam was to take a refresher course with the exam at the end of it. That way I'd have a chance of actually passing it! I heard that Kim Tilley and Paul Jordan were running such a course at Paul's club, the 61 Judo Club, in B>Amersham.
The day was 11th December 2005, the day that they had the big bang at Hemel Hempstead, Just up the road from Amersham. It was like driving into Armageddon. The reflection of the flames bouncing off the thick black smoke was very weird. I had heard the traffic reports about the M1 so I ended up leaving really early and driving about an extra 30 miles to get to the club. I then sat in the car park swotting and revising and convincing myself I'd never pass. I barely noticed the flames and the smoke, and the police helicopters circling overhead. It was like going to school in Beirut.
When they opened up the club it was as cold as ice despite the inferno just up the road. There were nine candidates in all, mostly going for their 1st Dan, with one guy taking his 3rd Dan exam. One of the guys had come across from Guernsey. I have to admit that I have been less nervous facing huge Russian fighters than I was facing Ms Tilley and her clipboard.
In fact the course was fantastic. Kim and Paul ran through the whole syllabus and made special notes of things that would affect our scores. To be honest, once they had started going through the techniques, I started to realise that I was already using some of them regularly despite not knowing what they were called. After a break for lunch, which I spent revising even more, we did a quick review and summary, and went through any questions from the candidates.
Kim and Paul asked for volunteers to take their exams, so I decided to try and get it out of the way as soon as possible whilst the info was still fresh in my head. Kim was tough but fair. She docked me 5 points for touching the floor with my toe demonstrating Osoto-Gari, but then scored me highly for Te-Guruma, despite my never having ever used it in 28 years of judo. I suppose I'd never had the chance to get into bad habits with it. I needed to score a minimum of 225 from the 320 points available, and was quite shocked when Kim added up the score and told me I'd passed with 295 points. I have to say I was pretty pleased with my performance after all the worry. For any of the players thinking of taking their exam this way I would recommend Kim and Paul's course very highly. The cost was only �10 each and everyone who attended on the day passed their respective exams.