Seminars in Pennsylvania and Georgia

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.

Who would have thought?

Over the weekend I taught a seminar at Gulf Coast Kenpo in Cape Coral, FL, hosted by Mike and Renee Squatrito. Five schools were represented. I was a bit surprised by the turnout on a holiday weekend. Local students from Gulf Coast and K. Zwarg's studio in Ft. Myers were there in force. But out-of-state attendees came from Windy City Kenpo in Chicago, Keith Mathew's studio in Canton, GA, and Gary Bell, a Bruce Meyer black belt were there. Australia's Jack Nilon was there, too. It was good to see some people I hadn't seen in a while, including some of the younger students I had trained when I owned the Ft. Myers studio.

I covered some techniques and extensions from the original Ed Parker purple belt curriculum in two seminars. It would be impossible to cover all 32 techniques in any detail in three hours, so a few related techniques and others often misunderstood were the focus. There were some white belts present as well as up to 4th blacks, so everyone could pick up something. All attendees received a certificate of participation.
My niece was promoted there also. She's being trained by Genie Byrd, who did the promotion ceremony.

PDS goes on the road

Some of you are familiar with my Professional Development Seminars (PDS). I've been doing them here in Florida since January and they've been well-received. Well, they're going on the road.
In August, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers take over the Celebration hotel where I usually do my seminars, so the August PDS will be in Canton, GA, not far from Atlanta. Keith Mathews will be our host, providing the location for the seminar.
In September, we're looking at Chicago and Fresno, CA and I have a tentative date set for November in the Greenville-Spartanburg, SC area. Those are just my PDS dates and all the registration will be done through me on my site or by mail.
I'll be doing other seminars, of course. Next week I'll be at Lake Mary, FL for Mike Friedman's event at his Champion Karate. I'll be in Manchester, NH at Steve White's in August, Frank Shekosky's Cromwell Martial Arts near Hartford, CT in September, and Joe Palanzo's WKKA camp in Baltimore and the Disney Martial Arts Festival in October.
Watch the website for other dates, and please contact me if you want to have a seminar at your studio.