I was at Marc Shay's school in Broomall, PA (near Philly) and then down to Keith Mathew's studio in Canton, GA (near Atlanta) this past week. I had been in Washington, DC for Rolling Thunder over the Memorial Day weekend and stayed up there for some extra time. Sam Babikian in PA arranged to have me over to the Mr. Shay's. We had a good turnout for my session on family groupings with emphasis on body mechanics. Mike Corsello and Stephanie Hammond came down with students from their studio in North Wales and Brian Price made the trip over from the Reading area. Brian donated his body to science as my demo partner. It was my first time there and the group was a pleasure to work with.
Since I had come up with friends from Florida and we trailered our motorcycles, I planned to ride back down to Florida. I did a combination of side roads, interstates and the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's been a while since I'd ridden in the mountains so it was a bit mentally exhausting but I got my "groove" back quickly. I stopped in Roanoke, VA and Maggie Valley, NC for overnights before arriving at Keith's studio on Friday.
I did four sessions for him there, including one for kids. Long 2, club and gun defenses for the adults and push defense for the kids. My good friend, Robert Wallace (some of you knew him as Robert Ray), showed up from Spartanburg, SC. He's been with me for 16 years and was the one who introduced me to Keith. We had discussed Keith's progress and I decided it was time to move him up to third black. We did his promotion just before lunch, between the seminars. Keith has been working steadily toward the rank, both having me up and travelling down to Ft. Myers. His students are showing that he's passing on the lessons - everyone is improving. My congrats to him!
That's Keith with his youngest son, Parker and pictures of his kick up.
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