www.leewedlake.com article update

Those of you who are subscribers at the site will see the May article posted in the member's section. It's entitled The Claw/Back-Knuckle Sub-Theme in forms. Here's an excerpt.

Sub-themes abound and one is the back-knuckle/claw series. It starts way down in Long Two and continues up into Form Six. The first example shows up in Long Two, the fifth section, as part of the universal block segments. It works like Raining Claw in which you drop the claw on his face to injure and obscure vision and follow with the back-knuckle. The variations are not important. Some do it as a rolling back-knuckle and others pump it up as a thrust. What is important is that it starts this sub-theme category.



You will need to look at the tools used and in what combinations. This should also be applied to other elements in the forms and techniques to enhance your understanding of the Alphabet of Motion.


In the example from Long Two you use a claw and then a back-knuckle with the other hand. Knowing we can alter sides and timing we start looking for other examples of these two weapons in other forms.

Spec Ops Warrior Foundation fundraiser and World Wide Ride

I'm going to Ft. Myers this weekend to attend our club's annual fundraiser for SOWF. The club has also organized a World Wide Ride for you motorcyclists. One goal is to raise money for SOWF, http://www.specialops.org/, the secondary is to get it in the Guinness book of records as the most riders in one day in one event. You can ride with a group or go around the block. Go here for details. http://www.specialforcesmc.org/.
It's a worthy cause. Photos to follow.

Ed Parker story

Mr. Parker used to tell a story about his high school teacher who told him he'd never amount to anything. He said that single event motivated him to do something with his life. He later told me that on a trip back home to Honolulu he went and found that teacher-and he thanked him.

    When he'd tell that story he'd often talk about how he wanted to be the organ-grinder instead of the monkey. For you young-uns who have no idea what that's about, here's the deal. About a hundred years ago men would get a monkey and train it do tricks while they played a mechanical, gear-driven organ. They hoped people would enjoy the show and put money in their cup. Mr. Parker's analogy was that he'd be collecting the money instead of doing the dancing. And that, kids, is just what he did.

You really can break someone's face

One of my black belts, Bill Damewood, is a paramedic (actually, a few of them are) and we were discussing facial trauma. There is something called Le Fort's fracture and it has three levels. He sent this along.

More than a century ago, Rene LeFort studied facial fractures in an experimental fashion.

He noted three common patters of fractures involving the bones of the midface. The following are called LeFort fractures:

LeFort I: This injury involves a horizontal fracture of the maxilla from the remainder of the midface. The maxilla may be depressed downward toward the tongue and compromise the airway because of the fracture and associated swelling.

LeFort II: This injury is also known as a pyramidal fracture because the fracture plane extends obliquely in an inferolateral direction. This type of midface fracture may be associated with significant hemorrhage because the fracture extends through the highly vascularized sinus cavities.

LeFort III: This injury is also known as craniofacial dissociation because the bones of the midface are fractured off from the remainder of the skull.

Picture from Google images. Take a look there to see more.

JAMA articles

The first quarter issue of Journal of Asian Martial Arts had four good articles in it on a variety of subjects. One on ritualized dojo patterns vs character training was informational and offered a lot on the whys of standing at attention, meditation, two-way respect and character building. While the examples are from a traditional Okinawan system, it applies to us as well.
   Another on the value of push-hands training in tai chi was interesting to me as it was written with my tai chi lineage as the foundation. It covered many good points in a short article.
   Considering budo as a form of art was the subject of another article and it made good arguments that the martial arts do, in fact, fit the criteria for being considered art like painting or acting. One significant point that stuck with me was how the author said one of his teachers emphasized that an upright posture should match an upright character. Another was that the practitioner needs to establish their values and know just what they will defend.
   The author of another article of reflections on traditional martial arts could have been reading my mind. He elaborates on the cultural changes that have affected the arts over many years and how those changes manifest themselves in our training today. One main thought is that we need to preserve what our predecessors developed and that's exactly how I feel about Ed Parker's Kenpo. I don't want this lost on my watch and I am aligned with other instructors who want it kept a bit more traditional so that students understand what they have before they start innovating it. It's real easy to change stuff but not so easy to recognize what you may lose in the process if you don't have a substantial understanding of what you're working with.
   I found this particular issue of the magazine a good read. Grab one while you can, although they do offer online the ability to download individual articles instead of spending the $10 for the mag.

Time dilation

Time dilation is the name for the idea that time seems to slow down when in a life-threatening situation. Mr. Parker used to tell a story about the actor, Christopher George, who starred in a show called The Rat Patrol. When filming, a Jeep rolled over and was headed straight for George. He told Mr. Parker that is was like everything went into slow-motion and he had plenty of time to figure out which way to move to avoid being crushed.  Many of us have had similar experiences under stress. Mr. Parker loved to recommend a book called Super Learning which purported to teach you to tap into the subconscious mind to slow time at will, implying you could use it as a self-defense tool. When I spoke with Prof. Stephen Yelon from the Univ. of Michigan about the book he called it pop psychology.
    Popular Science recently ran an article about time dilation in their April issue. Dr. David Eagleman's research suggests that the brain keeps two kinds of time; one keeps time in the now and the other tidies up perception of now. Neuroscientist Peter Tse says that our brain is trained to notice novelty and tells us what to pay attention to. He says our brain then processes more information per second. It's not used to that and gets caught in a loop of the familiar, thinking something should normally be this and defaulting to that duration. His conclusion is that our brain stretches time during novel experiences.
  Eagleman and Tse do not agree and the article goes into why. There is a rule they call "repetition supression". The brain spends less time on the familiar, so when the novel sight or experience happens the brain spends more time on it and it seems longer. That might explain why things seem slower when the car comes your way or a gun is pointed at you.
  They make an interesting link to schizophrenia with this in which time gets out of sync and one's internal dialog seems to be coming from without.
  Get hold of it if you can. It's interesting, and the rest of the issue isn't bad either.

The Crocodile and the Crane

I was given this book as a gift by Marc Sigle on my last trip to Germany. It's a story wrapped around an American chi-kung master but not a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon type of story. I did not know how to describe it but when I looked at the back cover, there it was in small print; Fiction/Martial Arts Fiction/Apocalyptic Thriller. I didn't know they had an Apocalyptic Thriller catagory.
I read it quickly. It had just enough detail on chi-kung and martial arts to keep me interested as well as a story that kept moving. The author, Arthur Rosenfeld, is a well-versed martial artist. His bio says he did some kenpo. He also did a Korean art and tai chi.


If you're into Chinese martial arts I think you'll like it. Cover price is $21.95 and the ISBN is 978-1-59439-087-6. 
http://www.amazon.com/Crocodile-Crane-Novel-Immortality-Apocalypse/dp/1594390878

New search page at KenpoTV

We've posted a new search page that is broken down by belts. Find it at http://www.kenpotv.net/search/

The Ft Myers seminar

Had a great time in FMY this past weekend. Genie Byrd hosted her first seminar there. The knife seminar was well-received. We had a couple of promotions, too. Ed Cabrera of Tampa bumped up Steve Torres and Normia Stephens to 2nd brown and 1st black respectively. I moved Bill Damewood and Lance Soares up to 4th after testing them on the previous day.
   The previous day I had time to hang out with Marc Rowe and we co-taught two CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) classes at one of the local hospitals on Friday. I always learn something myself when I do these, from the students and from Doc.
   My Dad turns 84 this week so we had a little birthday celebration for him on Sunday before I took off back home.
  It was good to see the guys there and I miss them.

Marc Sigle's BushidoES group in Esslingen is always great to work with. This is a shot of the last class on Sunday. We had spent time on forms Long 2 and Short 3, some extensions and freestyle techniques over the course of the weekend.

Saturday evening we spent at a restaurant on a hill overlooking Esslingen and Stuttgart. It has incredible views, especially as the sun is going down.

I sat with Marc and we tested two of his black belts for second degree, Nadja and Paul. They did a fine job. I had tested Marc during the day and the three of them were promoted on Saturday morning. Their photos are below.

In one of the funny moments that all seminars have, I was demonstrating Dance of Death on Paul and had him on the ground. Marc held up a blue card. Nobody seemed to know what that meant but Marc educated them by telling the group that "Blue is a healing color." Just an example of the Gemutlichtkeit our German friends are known for.