Upcoming Seminars

I'll be in New Bedford, MA this weekend with Lance Soares. Subjects for this weekend include gun defense and sleeper holds/concussions.
Plymouth, England with Gary Ellis is set for the last weekend of June. Coincidental that Lance lives in Plymouth, MA. Flow drills, two man techs and weapon work there.
Ft. Myers, FL will host Part 2 of the comprehensive review seminar we started back in April. Forms 4/5/6 are on the schedule as well as finishing off the techniques.
A multiple attacker seminar is tentative for Round Rock, TX in July.
August sees Broomall, PA, Charleston, SC, Mount Vernon, OH and Stony Point, NY on the schedule.
More dates and places can be found on my site at www.wedlakekenpotv.com/leewedlake/seminars-2

South Carolina PDS

Nick Dreiling hosted one of my Professional Development Seminars at his new location in Goose Creek, near Charleston, on Saturday, April 13. He was a bit under the weather but toughed it out.
A PDS is a small-group, intensive seminar very focused on a subject or subjects and this one was a continuation of detailing the original Ed Parker purple belt techniques.
Fourteen participants from all over SC and Genie Byrd drove up from Florida. Nick had lunch catered in. We ran about six hours and covered a lot of material.
Friday night we ran some seminars, too, with Bruce Meyer working with juniors and I taught a class on the freestyle techniques. It's always interesting to watch Mr. Meyer with a class and this time was no exception. He started to teach the advanced juniors a thesis form he's been working on. When I say started, I mean he gave them the first part. As I listened and watched I saw how well he had thought out what he had created, and that's what we want to see as instructors- what's come out of what we put in.
Thanks to Nick's wife Terri and his mom, Linda, for handling lunch. I think their baby girl, Lily, had a hand in there, too.  Nick's dad picked me up at the airport when Nick was feeling ill, so it was a pleasure to get a chance to know him, too.
I'll be back in SC in August, watch the website for details.

And I saw Bill Murray at the airport!

Charleston PDS

Nick Dreiling hosted another successful Professional Development Seminar at his school this past weekend.
We covered a LOT of material and everyone's brains were full by the end of the day.

   Bruce Meyer came down from Columbia, SC and ran two classes for kids on Friday evening. His subject was how to use environmental tools as weapons when needed. He had the kids work with a book, a broom, and a chair among other items. At the end of the classes he talked with the kids about their conscience. It was interesting to watch their faces and hear their questions. Mr. Meyer always does a fantastic job with the kids and I love to watch him teach.

  Nick gave me the nickel tour of downtown Charleston. Next time we'll get out to see Ft. Sumter, where the Civil War started. On the downside, Delta Airlines earned their name; Don't Ever Leave The Airport. I could have driven home faster. Time to spare, go by air.
   I'll be going back to Charleston in the fall, probably September or October. Watch for dates.

Charleston, SC this weekend

I'll be doing a Professional Development Seminar in Goose Creek this Saturday at Coastal Kenpo Karate. The last half of the original Orange belt techniques will be covered. Contact Nick Dreiling there or register on my site under seminars. http://www.leewedlake.com/index.asp?PageID=7

May will be busy

I am off to Chicago to Kurt Barnhart's school on April 30 and May 1 for three seminars. Then I'll do a Professional Development Seminar in the Charleston, SC area on Sat May 8, hosted by Nick Dreiling. Week after I'll be at Brian Price's in Leesport, PA. On June 1 I'll be back in PA at Marc Shay's for a weeknight seminar and follow that with a seminar at Keith Mathew's school in Canton, Georgia on June 5.  I should then be leaving to go to Athens, Greece to work with a group there for the first time. Yasou!

Charleston PDS

My Professional Development Seminar held at Coastal Kenpo Karate near Charleston last weekend was a success. Nick Dreiling hosted. His school there continues to improve. He's re-done the layout and it looks great. His demo team did a demo for us between seminars and the kids just keep getting better.
   I flew into Columbia, SC and spent the night with Bruce and Krista Meyer. They showed me some true Southern hospitality. Bruce and I drove down to Charleston the next day. I was really glad to be able to get the extra time to spend with them.
   Almost 20 practitioners attended the Saturday PDS, ranging from white to black belts, from three states. We covered almost half of the original Parker orange belt techniques. The guys had good questions and we all learned something.
   Nick plans to have me up there a few more times this year and to progressively cover the system from Orange up. Hope to see you in Charleston in 2010.

Chicago was a blast!

The seminars in Chicago, hosted by Kurt Barnhart, were successful (as always). It was good to see a bunch of the long-time students from the area participating in the Friday seminar and the Saturday PDS. Some of the old Chicago group who attended were Kurt and Barb Barnhart, Don Rushing, Rick Vecchi, Tony Velada, Ed Bilski, Jim Tucker and Manny Rivera. Former Ft. Myers resident Ozzie Rivero was there, too. A few of them are sons of  my students and it's rather striking to see the heritage being carried on.

     Since the Friday event was coincident with the anniversary of 9/11 I dedicated the seminar to their memory and a big portion of the registration fees I donated to the Special Operations Warrior Fundation (SOWF). http://www.specialops.org/.

SOWF provides scholarships to kids who've lost parents in SF operations and also help families of wounded get to the bedside of those soldiers when they arrive in the US.

   The Saturday PDS on Form 6 was intense but the group accomplished the mission in a shorter time than normal. It seems they prepared hard by working both sides of the listed techniques, went over the applications prior with Mr. Barnhart and had their questions ready. They even elected to skip lunch.

      I was able to get some time to work with Sensei Bob Garza at his dojo in Worth. He teaches a Sunday morning Iaido class, sword work, that I enjoy tremendously. This time I picked up some interesting fine points that heped me increase my understanding of weapon work in general. It's always a pleasure to work with Bob.

New stuff added to my website

Those of you who are subscribers to my website will find a new article entitled Now you see it....
In July I also added some interesting documentation from Ed Parker's studio and have some more of that coming in August.
Registration for the blue belt technique seminar at my studio in Ft Myers on Sat, Aug 8 is live, as is the registration for the Form Six PDS in Chicago scheduled for Sept 12.

Form 5 PDS

I held a Professional Development Seminar (PDS) at my school in Ft. Myers on Saturday. We worked Form 5 to death over the course of five hours. I told the group they'd be tired when I was done with them and we all were. A group from Ed Cabrera's club in Tampa came down and Charles Reyser came all the way down from Maryland.
My form seminar includes learning the form itself but also doing the techniques within, so you get the body work to get an understanding of the differences in the form applications when appropriate.
I've done a PDS on all the number forms and they have all been well-received. There's been a demand for Form 6 again, so watch my site for a date.
I shot the video for a Form 5 and 6 DVD the following day. I'm hoping to have that available in July.

How I spent (part of) the weekend

No, they didn't all get out of that airplane. These are the instructors and participants for a Civil Air Patrol Squadron Leadership School held at the Sarasota airport this weekend. I was asked to teach a section there on Professional Development. I had also been asked to do a presentation on overwater safety at an open house on the St. Petersburg/Whitted airport that same day, representing the Federal Aviation Administration (I'm a volunteer safety team member for them). It was a busy day, flying around Florida. The weather was great and I met some interesting people.

One participant at the school asked me what martial art I did because I had mentioned that I teach and that perspective is so important. We tend to look at things one way from the teacher's point of view and another totally different way is from that of the student, and teachers tend to forget that, which was my point. He guessed that I was a grappling guy. No, I told him. Shotokan? No again. He was at a loss so I told him Kenpo and he responded that he was a Tae Kwon Do person. I did not get to ask him why he guessed those other arts because we were interrupted. I'm curious as to his reasoning. Was it my body type or demeanor? Interesting.

The other interesting thing was the Whitted airport itself. It's a historic place because that's the first scheduled airline service was started almost 100 years ago. Cool stuff, this aviation thing.

Down time

Shaolin Temple

Ozzie Rivero, one of my Ft. Myers black belts who moved to Chicago, sent this. He's standing in front of the Shaolin Temple in China. That makes him the second one of my guys to visit there.

Tucson seminars

Shawn and Rebecca Knight packed their school when they hosted a successful seminar weekend in Tucson. I was there to teach with Steve LaBounty and Ed Parker. I met many new people from Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Frank Soto was there from Mexico, too. Dennis Conatser from Scottdale showed up; I hadn't seen him since Ed Parker's funeral in 1990.

What a great group they have out there. They remind me a lot of Steve White's group in New England. They are very cohesive, organized, and eager to perpetuate their art. One of their black belts, a girl named Candace, was found to have leukemia. They've been very supportive of the family in so many ways I can't describe. At the post-seminar dinner on Saturday night the young lady and her family came by for a few minutes. The school members had folded almost 1400 paper cranes for her, which they presented to her there. The cranes are significant in that they represent wishes for her return to health. One family is planning to go to Japan to a place where they hang these paper cranes outside. The wind and sun deteriorates them and when they break up, they believe the wishes are dispersed with the wind to spread the good wishes. That's just one sample of the family atmosphere of the AIK schools out there.

I was able to connect with my judo teacher, Carole Wolken-Melcher, who lives in Tucson. She came down to the studio and we had dinner together. She's 77 now, looks great, and we had a nice dinner and conversation. It was so good to be able to see her.

The seminars were very well attended, and seemed to be be well-received, based on the feedback I got. It was the first time I'd actually gotten to watch Mr. LaBounty teach. His session on what-ifs using forearms and elbows was right up my alley. It was a pleasure to watch. Ed Parker had the crowd going, with applause breaking out frequently.

Another really cool thing was going up toward Mt. Lemmon with some of his people and watching them run their forms out on the rocks up at 6,000 above sea level. The weather was nice and the view was spectacular.

All in all, it was a good weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing them again in 2009. Thanks to crew for hosting.

You have to know why

I do occasional flight instruction and a few weeks ago I was asked to fly with a lady that the regular instructor was having problems getting ready for her flight test. Since I didn't know her I felt that asking her about her motivation for learning to fly was fair game as she had close to 200 hours logged and had failed her FAA flight test three times. She had a nice Piper Cherokee 140 like what I had learned to fly in that her boyfriend had bought for her to learn in. He owns a Beechcraft Bonanza.
She told me that she got very nervous during an exam, and that she didn't feel the examiners had been fair with her. I questioned about what she thought she would do after she got her pilot license, since I had seen a bit of self-sabotage in both karate and flight training when someone got near a "promotion". She answered that her boyfriend, who was quite a bit older, had expressed the desire for her to fly his bigger, faster, more complex airplane in the event he lost his medical certificate. A medical is necessary for pilots to fly aircraft of the type most of us fly. She stated she didn't want to fly it because it scared her. So it boiled down to her training to get a license she really didn't want to fly and airplane she didn't want to fly.
We went out to fly and she did a fine job. When we landed I told her I thought there was no reason she couldn't be a pilot if she really wanted to. But I counseled her that she really had to want to do it for herself and nobody else. Yesterday I got a phone call from her flight instructor telling me that she and her boyfriend were selling both airplanes and she was quitting. "You nailed it" he said.
I've seen many a student in my studio who was there because someone else wanted them there; a parent, boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse who was really into the arts and wanted this person to be as well. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. As my title says, you have to know why you're doing something. A little introspection can be a good thing.

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.

The doctor is in

Marc Rowe found this information and it's related to a tennis stroke but certainly applies to any motion.

Technique: The Kinetic Chain
10/12/04 6:57 PM
(The information in this article was taken or adapted from the High
Performance Coaching Program Study Guide.)
The parts of the body act as a system of chain links, whereby the
energy or force generated by one link (or part of the body) can be
transferred successively to the next link. The link system in the service
action, which starts from the ground, can be explained in the following way
(Elliott and Saviano, 2001; Elliott & Kilderry, 1983):
a.. Leg drive
b.. Trunk rotation
c.. Upper arm elevation
d.. Forearm extension, upper arm internal rotation and forearm
pronation
e.. Hand flexion
The optimum coordination (timing) of these body segments and their
movements will allow for the efficient transfer of energy and power up
through the body, moving from one body segment to the next. Each movement
in the sequence builds upon the previous motion and they all contribute to
the generations of racket speed.
This transfer of energy in sequential coordination is also enhanced by
the stretch-shortening cycle of muscle action. The stretch-shortening cycle
involves the active stretching (the muscle is activated but is elongated by
another force) of a muscle in a countermovement immediately followed by a
more forceful shortening of the muscle in the desired direction. In the
forehand, for example, the chest and shoulder muscles are actively stretched
(coaches often use the cue "loading" here) as the trunk rotates into the
shot and the inertia of the arm and racket cause them to lag behind.
The active stretch of the muscle stores energy in the elastic elements
of muscle and associated tissues such as tendons, which is reused as the
muscle begins to shorten. This sequence of muscular coordination tends to be
chosen naturally by the brain, but sometimes this must be coached in players
who develop pauses, that in turn lead to missed segment rotations or
problems in sequencing segments.
The most effective tennis strokes begin with leg drive generating
ground reaction forces that can be transferred up the segments of the
kinetic chain to the racket. Proper timing of the segments in the kinematic
chain and stretch-shortening cycle muscle actions maximize the transfer of
energy to generate the greatest racket speed.
Example-One-handed backhands tend typically involve five kinematic
links that the player has to coordinate (Groppel, 1992). In most cases the
one-handed backhand is based on a sequential summing of the motions of the
legs, trunk, arm, forearm, and wrist/hand. Two-handed backhands during
early learning use fewer body segments, so many young players find this
stroke easier to coordinate. In the modern two-handed stroke a similar
number of segments are rotated as for the on-handed stroke.

Happy Thanksgiving

I want to wish everyone a happy holiday!

The doctor is in

The following article sent by Marc Rowe essentially says that if you use imagery of doing something after you've physically practiced it well, it's more efficient when you execute it.

Nov 22, 2008
Motor Representations and Practice Affect Brain Systems Underlying Imagery:
An fMRI Study of Internal Imagery in Novices and Active High Jumpers.

Open Neuroimag J. 2008;2:5-13

Authors: Olsson CJ, Jonsson B, Larsson A, Nyberg L

This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate
differences in brain activity between one group of active high jumpers and
one group of high jumping novices (controls) when performing motor imagery
of a high jump. It was also investigated how internal imagery training
affects neural activity. The results showed that active high jumpers
primarily activated motor areas, e.g. pre-motor cortex and cerebellum.
Novices activated visual areas, e.g. superior occipital cortex. Imagery
training resulted in a reduction of activity in parietal cortex. These
results indicate that in order to use an internal perspective during motor
imagery of a complex skill, one must have well established motor
representations of the skill which then translates into a motor/internal
pattern of brain activity. If not, an external perspective will be used and
the corresponding brain activation will be a visual/external pattern.
Moreover, the findings imply that imagery training reduces the activity in
parietal cortex suggesting that imagery is performed more automatic and
results in a more efficient motor representation more easily accessed during
motor performance.

Tucson, AZ and other thoughts

I'm going to Arizona for the first time in two weeks to teach at Shawn Knight's camp there the first weekend of December. Ed Parker Jr and Steve LaBounty will be on staff, too, so I'm looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to seeing Carole Wolken, my first Judo instructor, who is retired there. Carole lost her husband last year but she's doing well and we're going to have some time to hang out during my visit. If it hadn't been for Carole I'd have likely decided martial arts were not for me.
Just recently I was told some stories about initial experiences in the arts that defined perspectives on what the arts are about. I had a bad Judo teacher at the YMCA when I took my first few lessons. My mom thought I really liked it so she enrolled me at a full-time school, which is where I met Carole. She corrected my mistakes and I found that learning to fall and roll was fun, not painful. That may literally have been a meeting that changed my life.
A few days ago I took a flight check with an US Air Force officer/check airman, Major Carlos Salinas. He'd heard I'm a "karate guy" and I asked him if he'd ever taken it. He had when he was a teenager living on the US Marine base at Parris Island. He told me the first or second lesson he had with his friends and a Marine who taught the class they were learning to spar and the instructor broke his buddies nose with a spin kick. He decided that studying the arts was not for him.
That same day when my deputy director for Standards and Evaluation here in Florida Wing called me to see how my ride went we got to talking karate. Alan was US Army and kick-boxed in the service. He told me about how his first lessons with a military instructor when he was a teen were complete with kicks in the solar plexus when he or his friends were caught talking in class. It didn't stop him from continuing but he remembers it well as a negative experience.
I don't want you to think this is limited to military instructors. Lots of instructors think it's OK to hit their students in such manners. Maybe less today since people started to sue karate teachers but it's still happening.
A student I had in Ft. Myers had her nose broken in her first college Tae Kwon Do class. She quit but came back to it many years later with me, with a lot of encouragement (and courage). She's now approaching black belt with Mike Squatrito at Gulf Coast Kenpo.
Yes, we have to hit students when teaching techniques to show the physical effects to some degree. I've been hit plenty hard many times. I've have the chipped teeth, scars, and pains to show for it. But I don't hit kids and new students hard. I don't even hit the black belts too hard anymore though they tell me that even soft feels hard.
And my flight check? Successful. Major Salinas was very happy with me and my program here in FL. He told us at the hangar that he is inspired by the volunteers we have in the Civil Air Patrol. And I didn't even have to break his nose.

Pray Now

The snowbirds are coming back to SW Florida and the majority of them are older people. I was in traffic today and the car in front of me had license plates that said "Pray Now". I have to wonder if the owner is very religious or a really bad driver.