The club recognises that an aikido practitioner requires a constant dedication, patience, and persistence when practising the art in order to reach a 1st degree black belt (Shodan).
One must continuously explore, experiment, and evolve his/her aiki tecniques as well as the aiki mind and attitude on and off the matt. Reaching a 1st degree black belt is a milestone and at the same time a start to a journey of a more joyful and mature training.
These are the years when people passed their shodan (1st Dan; Black belt) tests:
- 1989 Opening of the UNSW Aikido club
- 1992 Anthony Davies
- 1994 Allen Iu, Petri Kurkaa, Stephen Hafer, Tony Gutierrez, Glen Davison
- 1997 Gregor Erdmann, Nandya Hermanto, Carlo Santos, Mark Vic, Jason Lim, Roger Pang
- 1999 Alan Soriano, David Matthews, David Yu,
- 2002 Adam Archer, James Khoo, Melissa Sommerville, Stuart Hill, Patrick Fong
- 2003 Angeline Fong
- 2004 Alex Chan, Stephen Herborn
- 2005 Dene Olding
- 2007 Billy Mok, Hermawan Halim, Kim Hickey, Yevgeny Khiefets
- 2008 Iven Sanchez
- 2009 Richard Gray
- 2010 Alexis Berthot, Morgan Derera
- 2011 Melissa Sim, William Hendarta
- 2012 Brian Chan, Evelyn Chan, Vidhya Sethu
- 2013 Radion Ingman, Tze Ling Loh
- 2014 June Andronick, Franz
- 2015 Kin Jin Ly, Theresia Hall
- 2016 Vincent Yeo