Seminar at Brian Price's studio

I was up at Brian Price's studio in Leesport, PA the weekend of May 12. I go up there once a year and Brian and Sue are great hosts. He always takes me out to the range to shoot for a few hours with one of his co-workers - He Who Shall Be Nameless. Nameless is a one-man armory and this year it was mostly .45 cal we were shooting. He's got a Performance Center 1911 model that he better keep his eye on or one of us will swipe it.
     Saturday was a full day with private lessons to start. With the kids I worked on some freestyle concepts. The adults did joint locking techniques in the first session and two man defenses in the second.
     Sam Babikian was in from Phildelphia to pick my brain as were Marc Shay and Jim Deery. These three gentlemen and now a part of my lineage, with Jim being the newest addition. Sam is working toward his 5th degree and has an interesting thesis in the works. Brian being my senior guy in the state of Pennsylvania, is doing a fine job with perpetuating the art and improving his own peformance with continued kenpo training and cross-training in Systema. He recently got his Instructor In Training certificate directly from Vladimir Vasiliev. Congrats to him for that.
   The adult seminars were pretty packed with students from Mr. Price's studio as well as the aforementioned Philadelphia contingent along with Dan Meck from Meta Martial Arts and Mike and Stephanie from Corsello's studio. Other studios were represented, too, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

 

Frank Trejo is having a tournament

http://www.tcbinternationals.com./

Memorial Day

It's another day to tell a vet "Thanks for your service" and to honor those who gave their lives.
This photo is from an escort ride I went on recently to Camp Mabry here in Austin, where we took the traveling Vietnam Wall. 106 motorcycles were present with a police escort.
Two days ago I stood in a flag line with members of the Patriot Guard for a sailor who passed away and we were thanked by the family and friends.
This day is not about a day off work.

Brian Duffy's mini-camp

I taught a class at Brian Duffy's quarterly mini-camp here in Austin. I felt very "at-home" with his group. This is a hard-core group. They were working all day, at times in the 90 degree heat, when I got there. No problems, though. They took their breaks and stayed hydrated; intelligent, safe training.
   I watched Mr. Duffy teach some staff v staff techniques that were pretty cool and we got to trade variations on some two-man stuff. This also gave me an opportunity to reacquaint with some of the guys and put names with faces as well as meet his crew. They were in from Missouri, Oklahoma, parts of Texas and even Chile. This photo is of the AKF black belts.

  Afterward there was a Texas BBQ and apparently some kind of BBQ throw down as to whose was the best. I've never seen so many grills come out at an event. Brisket, chicken, salmon, sausage and fixins. It was great. There's more on Facebook if you look at Brain Duffy's page.  

Margate, Florida seminar

 Here's a shot of the group at Black Belts Kenpo in Margate, FL from last weeks Friday night seminar. I covered speed and power in techniques along with the process of analyzing motion. These people are good movers, they don't speed and they know how to hit. Nice attitude, too.
It was good to see people from other studios and organizations. Dave Miller was there, and I hadn't seen him in years. I finally met Mike Allen. I'd heard his name but had never crossed paths until now. Steve Torres came down, he's one of Ed Cabrera's brown belts.
I had not seen Munis Abunuwar, my host, and his brothers for probably about a decade. Munis and I had about an hour to get caught up. He's got a large operation going there at his studio and it was full of kids when I arrived. And Munis still has his hair!

The picture here is of myself and the three brothers. The last photo I saw of us all, we had hair and none of it was gray. Dinner afterward was a good time and I enjoyed myself overall. Turns out all the brothers ride motorcycles, too, so we had some more stories to tell. Thanks to everyone who was there. Looking forward to seeing you again. 

Dad is a funny guy

After I finished my seminar at Black Belts Kenpo in Margate, FL I went over to Cape Coral stay with my dad. I arrived at his condo after midnight and didn't expect him or anyone else to be up. But I saw people in the parking lot and thought that was a bit unusual. No big deal. When I mentioned it to him in the morning he asked if I'd seen the Angel of Death out there, too. Why? Because apparently the Grim Reaper had been by to take a few people from the building with him. Dad says "I've been wearing a name tag with someone else's name to fool him".
  When I'd told him I was down in the French Quarter of New Orleans recently he said when he was in the Navy he used to love to hang out at Marty Burke's, a long-gone bar there, when they were in port. Apparently, Marty Burke had been a heavyweight boxer in the Jack Dempsey era.
   One of the shipmates got pretty drunk and the cops were going to take him. They kept him by tying him to a lamp post with his neckerchief until they could get back and properly arrest him. His ship-mates found him first, untied him and took him back shipboard.
   On the way out of port they encountered heavy seas in the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone except about nine of them were seasick. Dad was one of the nine and he told me he and some of the sailors had to hold down a piano they had on board since it was banging off the walls as the ship pitched and rolled.
  Funny stuff, I think. Got more for you later.  

Blast from the past

1986 in Indiana. Barry Moyer coordinated a seminar there sponsored by Wendy's hamburgers. This is the same Barry Moyer who runs the WRBBOF today. (Good guy.) Pete Tomaino in Chicago had been chasing this photo for 25 years when I realized I'd been in contact with Barry thru Facebook and he was the same person. Take a close look and you'll see Mr. Parker holding a corner of the Wendy's banner. I'm in the front row, looking back, and sitting next to Eric Lee, who is next to Tadashi Yamashita. Ted Tabura is right behind me. Billy Blanks is in there, so is Ernie Reyes, both Sr and Jr. (next to Yamashita). There are some other well-known people in there such as Ronald Duncan and Mike Replogle. It's a cool shot and I thank Mr. Moyer for getting it to us.  

Texas event update

Steve White and I are promoting the Kenpo Senior Conference here in Austin the last week of October. The senior instructors are settling on their subjects and registrations are starting to come in. There is limited seating for the dinner on Saturday, so get registered for that ASAP. So far, people have registered from Missouri, Florida and Germany. Registration and room reservations are found at www.wedlakekenpotv.com/KenpoSeniorConference.

Home Defense

I sent a message to John McGregor at the Sig Academy as to what he recommended for a home defense shotgun. He and my old friend Doug Kimme both recommend the Remington 870. But on John's podcast he goes into more depth on the answer with his co-host. He used my question as part of the show. Here's the link. http://www.gunfightercast.com/wordpress/2012/05/13/gc-061-question-show/

Update

The registration page is almost done. You'll be able to pre-register, add a guest for dinner if you plan to bring someone along and add an event t-shirt (which you'll pick up at the event). The registration pages are on my site. www.wedlakekenpotv.com/KenpoSeniorConference We have added a another lineage instructor. In addition to Brian Duffy, Ron Sanchez, Graham Lelliott, Marc Sigle, Bruce Meyer, Glenn Haley and Steve White we have Tom Graves of Seattle coming.

 Check the site and get onboard ASAP. We're looking forward to seeing you in Texas.

May article posting

My May article is on the Three Faults. Premium subscribers at www/wedlakekenpotv.com/leewedlake can read the article. Subscriptions are available at $29/yr. Here's an excerpt.

Professor Cheng referred to Greediness as a fault. He quotes Lao Tzu and says “Have little and receive much; have much and be confused.” He also refers to a Chinese saying of “If one is greedy nothing can be thoroughly chewed.” Both Cheng and Mr. Parker were saying that if you want to get it all as fast as you can you’ll likely end up with little or nothing. Cheng specified that if you want to know everything you’ll come away frustrated. He says you should learn something, and then practice to polish and memorize. Funny, Mr. Parker used to use the term “polish” frequently. He’d refer to “spit-shining” us. Both agree that is takes time.

www.wedlakekenpotv.com

We're working away at cleaning up the new site. Scott added a search button and he's planning playlists.
I have resequenced the techniques and other material to match the historical material and broken out basics. etc to make it a bit easier. He still has to upload that but it's coming.
  I found that some stuff got lost in the transfer. It's like moving, you  miss things that are in some box somewhere. But, we're making progress.
  I have shot more extensions, more basic terminology and some stick work. The upload process from here has not been smooth so that's going to take a little while to get the new info up.
  Comments, questions, suggestions can be sent to me at lee@leewedlake.com.

One of my old t-shirts