headline: Grandad who earned karate black belt at the age of 74
text: When Mike Mitchell started his journey through the karate belts at the age of 69, he found himself competing at events full of children.
  He was many decades older than the other students, and during one grading he even considered leaving.
  "I was surrounded by children who had higher grades than me and 50 parents watching from the balcony, and I felt like running away," he said.
  But Mike forced himself to overcome his embarrassment - and has become the oldest man to obtain a Japanese Karate Association (JKA) black belt in Scotland.
  "There was nobody there as old as me at the gradings," said the former PE teacher.
  "I felt embarrassed that people were watching but didn't know who I was or why I was there."
  Now after five years and thousands of hours of training, the 74-year-old has achieved the first dan grade.
  While there are older people with black belts, they achieved them when they were decades younger. No-one else has achieved a JKA black belt in Scotland while in their 70s.
  Mike, who has three children and two grandchildren, lives in Haddington, East Lothian, with his wife of 52 years, Gloria.
  He said he had been on "an endless search to prove myself to myself", with previous interests including mountain climbing and badminton.
  "I would hope the next mountain climb, or badminton competition, would be my masterpiece," he said.
  "But it wasn't until I got my black belt that I realised I had been released from this and that I had achieved my masterpiece.
  "I had been fighting all my life to prove myself. I didn't know why I was doing it at the time, but now I feel like an inspiration to my family - and I feel relief."
  Mike was well into his 70s when he started training with brown and black belts.
  "During one of the sessions I was fighting a black belt and suddenly I was on the floor and I couldn't breathe.
  "I hadn't been winded since I was a child, but that is what it was. He had swept my front leg with his, and dumped me on the floor, end of fight.
  "After that I started to change my fighting style."
  When he went for his black belt last month, Mike was told he might not be allowed to do the fighting part of the grading.
  "They were concerned I could have a heart attack or get really beaten up due to my age," he said.
  However, he begged his instructor to ask if he could fight and was allowed to do so - against an opponent who was about half his age.
  Mike said his style had evolved since the earlier fight when he was winded.
  "When someone attacks you, your instinct is to move back - but if you move in just at the moment they initiate an attack it can be very effective, particularly if you have long levers, which I have.
  "So he stepped in, I stepped in and stopped him in his tracks. It happened twice more.
  "I think he was getting what they were afraid I would get."
  When the contest was over, Mike had achieved his black belt - which he described as "an extraordinary moment".
  He now plans to spend the next two years training for his second dan.
  Paola Burrows, his instructor at the JKA Bass rock Club in Gullane, said Mike was "a great fighter and an inspiration".
  "People think that if you go to enough lessons you will become a black belt, but it just doesn't work like that," she said.
  "You have to prove you are worthy of a black belt and Mike did more than this at his first dan grading.
  "He was up against an opponent much younger than him who was incredibly shocked when Mike stopped him dead several times." 