I'm baaack

Got home last night from Germany. I'm up to my eyeballs in apfel schole, streudel, and weiner schnitzel. I really enjoyed my time with the groups in Esslingen and Dusseldorf.
Marc Sigle and I drove up to Dusseldorf on a Friday to meet Gary Ellis and Mark Richards from England. Marc did the driving - up the Autobahn in his Mercedes sports car - yahoo! We stopped at a museum on the way, at Sinsheim, which was a bit of a treat as it was loaded with cars, motorcycles, and airplanes.
There are a few kenpo groups in the Dusseldorf area and the one Gary Ellis and I work with is in the Buderich/Meerbusch area. Sascha Berning is their lead guy and he has some really good people supporting him and who helped make their first "Sommercamp" a success. Thanks to Dirk, Ingo, Udo, Peter and the others who made it happen. I was told that about seven or eight groups were represented at the camp, with kenpo people from Germany and Holland attending.
We worked on category completion, realistic responses, what-if scenarios, and Gary and I co-taught a multiple attacker seminar. The facilities were great, the people very receptive, and there was a nice atmosphere of friendship. Sascha lent the use of his large offices in Dusseldorf for a barbeque and the Sunday classes, which is where the bar is that you see in Mark Richard's class on environmental awareness. Some classes were outside on Sunday and the weather was nice.You can see my website from more pictures.


My thanks go out again to Sascha and Conny for having me in their home. They have two beautiful twin girls, two years old, and a dog so you can imagine the chaos when they get wound up. (Conny gets the big, gold star for handling that.)
I met a lot of people from differnt groups and ares and they all are interested in making their kenpo better. Despite the language and cultural differences I think we all made ourselves pretty clear that kenpo has and will improve lives.