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

• 2018 Antonio Miranda, Stephane Velasque