The Black belt grading took place on Sunday morning the 25th of October in the Clarion Hotel Liffey Valley in Dubin.

Six students took to the floor in front of Master Wheatley and his panel of examiners, Master Wheatley was joined on the panel by Master Creedon of Ireland, Master Batch of the USA, Mrs. Batch of the USA, Mr. and Mrs. Csanyi of Canada also on the panel from Ireland was Mr. O Brien and Miss. Field.
 
Mr. McCabe conducted the warm up for all testing students, following this the promotion test began with all student performing patterns, the five students going for their 1st were tested on all patterns and Greg Quigley who was testing for second degree had to perform his three first degree patterns. A considerable amount of time was spent by the students performing patterns and several techniques from within those patterns. Students were then tested on all series of step sparring and this was followed by free sparring. After this student were placed back into their line and executed different kicks up and down the floor. The importance of this exercise was to see if student knew the names of the different types of kicks and to see if they could perform them correctly. Throughout the promotion test students were quizzed on the theory aspect of Taekwon-do.

The grading finished with all student performing breaks using left and right hand and feet.

At the closing of the grading Master Wheatley along with Master Creedon and Master Batch confirmed that all students had been successful and received promotion to their new grade. The highest test score being allocated to Barry Brophy.

Promoted to 1st degree were Abbie Soon, Ann Marie Martin, David Lonergan, Richard Gill and Barry Brophy with Greg Quigley receiving his second degree. Following a short break the weekend’s events continued with a Master Class hosted by Master Wheatley.

This was a special event for ITF Éireann  with the presence other Masters such as Master Creedon  , Master Batch and also Master Harry of the UK .Some of the countries that had representation at the master class were England ,USA , Canada , France and of course Ireland.

The event kicked off with Master Creedon performing his speciality stretching routines to limber up all students for the activities to follow, Master Creedon then called on Master Batch to put student through some fundamental exercises. Following Master Batch’s exercises Master Wheatley was called upon to resume the Master Class.

Master Wheatley began by asking all 6th and Master degrees to stay on the floor to perform Tong IL, on completion of this, all students were asked back on to the floor to perform various techniques from the tul. Next up were 5th and 6th degrees to perform Se Jong and again once all had performed the tul student came back on to the floor to work on several different movements, Master Wheatley then   went on to cover some lower grade patterns and power development in these patterns.

Following the tuls section of the Master class Master Wheatley covered Dodging techniques and its application to tournament sparring. He demonstrated the purpose and effectiveness of this technique. Master Wheatley followed this with some of the technical aspects of the many kicks in Taekwon Do, explaining their purpose and demonstrating their execution. He emphasized the importance of Instructors being competent to pass this information correctly onto their students, which makes the learning process better and more consistent for all concerned. For the final part of the master class student broke into different groups. These groups were lead by Master Norman Creedon VII of Ireland, Master Terry Batch VII of the USA, Mr Henry O Neill VI of Ireland, Mr Patrick Toneff VI of the USA and Mr Frederic Bablon VI of France.

To finish the Master Class all instructors and students lined up and were presented with a certificate of participation, a special award was presented to the young Kevin Gayson Molloy for being one of the youngest participants at the age of 8. Master Wheatley closed by thanking everybody for their involvement on the days work.

Later that night instructors and student joined the Masters for an evening meal during which speeches and presentations were made.