The IMA Family offers its sincere congratulations to everyone who successfully earned new black belt designations this weekend!
Over 30 students and instructors endured 8 hours of training and testing this past Saturday as part of their black belt progression. In addition to multiple members of the IMA family earning advanced black belts through many years of dedicated training, three members of our family were also awarded the title of Shihan – making this past weekend one of the most memorable in IMA’s long history.
Black Belts
Kuro Shiro
Keegan Jarred, Athena Peters, Brandon Le, Harvey Nexhip, and Ben Gygi
Kuro Midori
Bryan McCarty, Anneka Pawlak, Kurt Nakasato, Kate Nakasato, Keon ZiaShakeri, and Andy Nou
Shodan Ho
Vani Topkar, Sherri Murgallis, Brent Cain, Tammy Nakasato
Shodan (1st Degree Black Belt)
Ewan Albright, Nisha Maheshwari, Jacob Peters
Nidan Ho
Dasha Petropavlovskikh, Doris Danielson, Kai Funk, Parkhi Rai, and Wendy Fayles
Nidan (2nd Degree Black Belt)
Kamran Madani
Yondan (4th Degree Black Belt)
Deborah Keyek-Franssen and Odile Lynch
Godan (5th Degree Black Belt
Bob McCormick, Michelle Prud’Homme, and Shanta Thokar
Rokudan (6th Degree Black Belt)
Rick McGavin, Rudolph Muhammad and Fariba Madani
Special Achievements
In addition to the numerous black belt awards given, additiona awards were presented at our Black Belt Extravaganza Dinner on Saturday night:
Senpai
Dasha Petropavlovskikh and Keith Nakasato
Sensei
Deborah Keyek-Franssen
Shihan
Rudolph Muhammad, Rick McGavin, and Fariba Madani
Celebrating 20 Years!
In addition, Shihan Fariba Madani was presented with an award for 20 years of martial arts training!
Thanks also to all of the black belts and instructors who helped with the Dan testing and to all of the friends and family that came to support the students.