Congratulations to Blake Boginsky for passing the Krav Maga Level 1 (Yellow Belt) test this afternoon!
Blake has been taking three lessons a week all summer, as well as practicing on his own, to be proficient enough to pass the Level 1 test.
In our Krav Maga program the youngest we’ll accept a student is 12 years old as long as they are both mentally and physically mature enough to handle the aggressive type of training we do.
Blake just turned 13 last week. He is the youngest student I’ve ever promoted in my 19 years of teaching Krav Maga!
To be honest, 12 and 13 year old students are my least favorite students to teach. They generally don’t put forth much effort, have sloppy techniques, and don’t have a true appreciation of the self-defense and fighting skills they are learning.
But not Blake! He almost always worked hard and showed good focus during his lessons. When I would give him a correction, he would actually implement it. When I would tell him what he needed to practice on in order to improve, he would come back the next lesson showing those improvements. It was obvious to me that he actually put in the work on his own because he always showed improvement when he returned to his next lesson.
His dad Ed signed him up to make sure he wouldn’t be a victim of bullying in school. When they first started he told me how some of the kids at Blake’s school were bigger then he is as an adult! To best prepare Blake for this, he served as his training partner during the lessons. And neither Ed or I went easy on Blake! We worked him hard including many different live self-defense and sparring drills to simulate real fights.
I’m proud of what both Blake and Ed accomplished this summer! They will continue on to Level 2 training during the school year.