Marc Sigle invited me over to Germany with a visit to their Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt) in Esslingen on the schedule. Esslingen is an old town and much of the area has been preserved as it has been for hundreds of years. They recreate the market of the Middle Ages, complete with torches, food, drink and people dressed in character. Pretty cool. It's reputed to be one of the best of its kind in Germany.
Marc picked me up at the airport and it was snowing, as it did most of the weekend. That was a switch from the Texas weather I'd left, where it was almost 80 degrees and sunny. We met up with his wife, Isabelle and his student, Lenny and had lunch at the market.
Over the weekend I taught two children's classes, two technique classes (one on some knife defense and another on extensions), an in-depth basics class, one class on Short Two, another on Long Three and another two on the Two Man Set. That one was very well-received and I had Tommy Kozitzky and Marc assist. We had a special black belt class on Form Five, too.
Phil Buck was down from England, he's a Gary Ellis black belt. Phil writes horror and his books are available on Amazon.
Tommy Kozitzky and Claudia Neumann came down from Dusseldorf, too. Claudia has been instrumental in producing the German translation of my book on the base forms, Kenpo Karate 201. The weekend was the initial debut of the book, the first kenpo book in German. That was pretty special.
As always, the food was good, the people were great and I got to work on my German some more.
We have sets dates for 2013, in April and November. Steve White will join me in the April trip.
Thanks to Marc and everyone who participated!
No comments:
Post a Comment