Law of the jungle or law of the farm?

Many instructors and practitioners I have talked with recently express concern that people learning MMA are learning half of what they should. They are learning the physical techniques but not the philosophy and ethics that martial arts should. I was sent this link about a ju-jitsu instructor who addresses just that thinking. Take a look.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=7705290

POWs

I have a student some of you have heard of named Rick Stone. I have gotten some interesting information on many subjects over the years from him. Recently it's about his experience as a POW in World War Two. There was a commentary circulating on the web about prisoner mistreatment by Col. Bud Day, a Medal of Honor recipient. Col Day wrote about being tortured in a Vietnamese prison camp. Rick read it and this was his response.

Mr Wedlake,
I agree with the remarks uttered by Col Day. Both my brother and I experienced somewhat the same kind of thing in a different conflict.Only the other day my brother told me that he was having to go to the doctor at least once a month to have liquid removed from the scrotum area, this as a result of being kicked repeatedly in the testes. And this happened over 60 years ago.
Rick

There are a few lessons there.

The latest one was about the alleged existance of prison camps being readied in the US, about 800 of them. This is what Rick had to say.

Why am I not surprised.
Governments in in so-called industrialized countries have been keeping lists of people who they consider undesirable for the past 100 years and possibly more.
When the WW- 2 broke out,England rounded up many scholars and academics, most of them in the upper class schools like Eton and Cambridge. They were considered sympathetic to Germany and had been preaching fascism for a long time.
They were put into "lock downs" in the north of Scotland and guarded by troops.
Their treatment was harsh. Not all of them survived until 1945.

Didn't someone say those who could not remember the past are condemned to repeat it?

Congratulations!

One of my Chicago black belts, Ed Bilski, called me to tell me he just did his first solo flight in an airplane. That's huge! Here's the backstory. He is being taught to fly by his daughter, Tiffany, an instructor at Lewis University near Joliet, IL. I gave Tiffany her first airplane ride when the family was down here on a vacation and Ed was training with me while here.

Anyway, I guess she cut his shirt-tail off (a pilot tradition) and Ed is one of a very few people who have broken the surly bonds of earth on his own. Congrats again, Ed!

Promotions

I was invited to Steve White's Manchester Karate Studio recently to test Mr. Jim Peacock and Mr. Tim McKenzie for their 6th and 5th degrees, respectively. I have to say that the 2.5 hour exam was one of, if not the best, exam I have seen for those ranks.

Tim McKenzie, shown being kicked up here, is the senior instructor at MKS. Mr. Peacock, below, owns a studio in Mont Vernon, NH and has been with Mr. White for 23 years.

Their exam was a balance of all facets of the system, liberally laced with questions on history, terminology, ritual and etiquette, standards, teaching principles, and medical implications. Both wrote papers breaking down a technique into its components and what the strikes actually did to tissue and bone. The physical portion included demonstrations of the applications of every technique in the higher form in sequence. They also did attack categories with line interruptions and pick-ups, doing all of them spontaneously and using the formulation principle.

Both men did a fine job and I congratulate them. Their instructor, Mr. White, did a great job with them and gets an "atta-boy", too.

A research tool

I think it's important that practitioners get a grounding in anatomy and physiology. A while back Dr. Rowe mentioned to me that there is a section on Google where you can find medical information. Here's the info.

Lee, the Google engine is Google scholar. You go to Google home page. On the upper left you see "more" - click. you get a list- third down is Scholar- click and you are in business. The engine is a scientific search that is heavy on medical science and a good screen of solid information. You can get actual medical abstracts by launching pub med. Just google pub med to get home page. It contains all the medical literature. Actually plain old Google has mixed in with commerical stuff some real solid information.

There you have it. Now it's up to you.

The King and I

The title above was sent to me when I got this photo from one of my black belts, Ozzie Rivero. Ozzie trained here in Ft. Myers and moved to Chicago to work in the transplant program at the University of Chicago hospital. This photo shows him on a transplant run to Memphis. If you read the post from the previous day about coincidences, here's another connection. Dr. Marc Rowe was at U of C as his first staff position back in 1955!

The doctor is in

An odd coincidence occurred this week. One of my brown belts has a daughter who went in the hospital to have her appendix removed. The problem turned out not to be her appendix but a twist in her intestine. There's more to it than that but suffice to say that she's up and doing great. The coincidence part is that I got an e-mail with the link below from Tom Baeli and it's an article from 1987 in the New York Times. One of my students today is Dr. Marc Rowe, who is mentioned in the article. I know Marc does not like attention but I like to think that what he did that is written about in the article is a contribution to the success of Deb's daughter's operation this week, 30+ years later.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/02/us/girl-3-undergoes-4-organ-transplant.html

New class starts

On of my junior black belts, Maxx Pollack, demonstrates his technique underwater in the the Florida Keys.

Annual Pai Lum gathering

Just as we have our kenpo camps, our kenpo friends at the Pai Lum organization are having their international gathering in Orlando at the end of July. Sifu Glenn Wilson, his wife and some students came to our mini-camp here in February. We enjoyed having them.

Their event will have empty hands, weapons, breathing, groundwork and more. Check out the website here. http://www.pailum.org/frameindex.html

Another promotion!

One of my Ft. Myers students, Peter Galvano, tested and was promoted to second degree black on May 29th. His mother, who is a pretty neat lady, was there to see him get his kick.

I am working with Pete on enhancing his instructor skills as he works toward his third degree. Not that he needs much, he was a professional golfer and instructor. He was good enough to play on the PGA tour a few years back.

"Mr. Pete" is popular at the studio and I'm lucky to have him around.

New stuff on my site

I've added the original IKKA time-in-grade requirements to the Members section on my website. There's over 100 other articles in there as well with more stuff coming soon. It's $29 a year for access and I've been told by some people that they "live in there". There have been some other updates as well. www.leewedlake.com

Form 5 PDS

I held a Professional Development Seminar (PDS) at my school in Ft. Myers on Saturday. We worked Form 5 to death over the course of five hours. I told the group they'd be tired when I was done with them and we all were. A group from Ed Cabrera's club in Tampa came down and Charles Reyser came all the way down from Maryland.
My form seminar includes learning the form itself but also doing the techniques within, so you get the body work to get an understanding of the differences in the form applications when appropriate.
I've done a PDS on all the number forms and they have all been well-received. There's been a demand for Form 6 again, so watch my site for a date.
I shot the video for a Form 5 and 6 DVD the following day. I'm hoping to have that available in July.

Changes

Think about changes before you make them. Here's a story you might enjoy.

http://www.leewedlake.com/index.asp?PageID=22

Visiting black belts

In the last two weeks we've been visited by some of our old friends. It was a nice surprise to see Keith Wadsworth and Alicia Martorelli come over to attend our grand opening on May 30. After the event we had a chance to have lunch and catch up.
This past week two of my black belts who moved away came back to town to see friends and family. Ozzie Rivero, who was one of the first to start at my Ft. Myers studio and got his black there, dropped in. Oz is now the coordinator for the University of Chicago hospital organ transplant program. Oz is the guy with the Igloo cooler at times.
Steve Catapano left Ft. Myers in 1999. He and his wife Leigh had dinner with myself, Jan and Bill Damewood. The couple is expecting twins. Steve looks the same and he's been working for the L-3 corporation as an engineer. He did some work for NASA and he's involved with the space program. His wife says they don't talk about their jobs. Steve's son, Stevie, just graduated from high school here, which is what brought them down.
It was really good to see them all and to know they're all doing well.

The doctor is in

If you are an instructor and/or school owner you especially need to be aware of this. You should be asking incoming students if they have any kind of medical condition you need to know about. This excerpt below was generated through a discussion I had with Dr. Rowe about a student in California who has a pacemaker and defibrillator.



Lee- here is a link that includes recommendations that are well accepted for competitive sports but specifically reference activities that may result in bodily trauma. I include their special considerations below. Once these statements are published in respected refereed journals people who choose to not follow their recommendations are place in a legally awkward position.

Marc

http://content.onlinejacc.org/cgi/content/full/45/8/1318 the 36th Bethesda Conference report is presented here in the context of measured and prudent recommendations—intended neither to be overly permissive nor restrictive—and which should not be regarded as an absolutely rigid dictum. Indeed, the managing physician with particular knowledge regarding a given athlete’s cardiovascular abnormality, psychological response to competition, and other medically relevant factors may choose to adopt somewhat different recommendations in selected individuals.



The rest of the e-mail is found on my site in the free articles section. http://www.leewedlake.com/articles.asp