New England Tour Recap

The weekend seminars at all four studios were dedicated to the memory of Mr. Parker. Each was started with a few words and the entire group running Short Form One together.

 Friday I was down at Holden Martial Arts in Holden, MA, where I taught two seminars. The Holden school was bought by Steve White and Lee MacDonald a while back and it's a nice facility. My first class there and the next day at Manchester Karate Studio were Family classes. We had a nice mix of parents and kids along with adults of all ranks. Both days we worked on some self-defense techniques with a focus on relating motion. The second classes were for adults and the subjects at both were weapon techniques.

I chose club defenses to start with and we worked on not only how to defend but also the Parker principles of use of a stick. Four beginner level techniques were the models and I expanded from there. Both the Holden and Manchester classes were pretty packed and there were students from three schools at each. Santa Claus even showed up at Manchester and told me he thought my lecture was interesting. (Our Santa is a "card-carrying" Santa who is involved in making and distributing wooden toys to 800 children and even has a workshop. I received a top. Hoping the TSA wouldn't take it.)

  The Saturday morning class was at Jim Peacock's Mont Vernon, NH studio. Body mechanics were the subject. It was one of those sessions where you get started and then look up at the clock to find you're out of time already. Everyone was surprised the 1.5 hour session went so fast. Mr. Peacock is one the fewer and fewer instructors who knew Mr. Parker, having met him when he was a green belt. He's got one of those great pictures on his wall of Mr. Parker doing an elbow sandwich on him and describing what he's doing.
  After that afternoon's classes in New Hampshire at MKS, Steve White, his son Ross, Tim Mackenzie and I rode down to Boston to meet Lance Soares and his wife, Anne. Steve selected the Green Dragon as the meeting place. It's down by Fanieul Hall and is reputed to be the pub the Sons of Liberty met before the American Revolution. Some nice history there. I was handed off to the Soares and off to New Bedford, where they have a studio. Lance and I had breakfast with his dad, Rich. I always enjoy the time with him.

  The first session was with the kids on falling and rolling. It was a pretty good sized class and they were well-behaved. The last seminar of the tour was on joint locking.

We had guests from three other schools there including two of Mr. Sepulveda's AKTS black belts/school owners, Sean Crehan and Tim Murphy. "KenpoJoe" Rebelo was there, too. I hadn't seen him in years. New black belt Chris Walsh was there with students from his dad's studio Connecticut, too. Speaking of sons, I had given Ross White his first kenpo lesson many years ago and it's a pleasure to see what a fine young man he's become.

  These are all clean, safe, well-run studios. The New England tour was a great way to wrap up 2012. I'l be back up in 2013, as will John Sepulveda. Tim Murphy hosts an AKTS event in New York in August at which many of us will be instructing, including Steve White and Sigung Steve LaBounty.

Murphy, Wedlake, Crehan, Soares