New Bedford seminars

Lance Soares opened his new studio about a year and a half ago and this was my first visit. He and his wife, Anne, are rapidly filling it with students.
I taught their Black Belt Club  class Friday night. They sure are enthusiastic students! I taught Parting Wings for everyone and a modification for the children. As with all the sessions, it went too fast.
  Saturday opened with a packed seminar for the kids. The subject was escapes from grabs. Lance's group is one of the best disciplined children's classes I've worked with. And they asked great questions and knew the answers to questions on power principles, too. Lance is doing a good job.
  Sean Crehan was there to represent the Sepulveda lineage. Always to good to see him. And Brian Walsh brought several people up from Connecticut. They are moving well and we're looking forward to seeing them more.
 Seminar 2 was on drills and then I gave them the Defending the Third Person class. That showed me they're a creative bunch, too.
  Lance's parents dropped in with Destiny, too. I enjoy talking with Rich and Chris always gives me a hug. Destiny is Lance's niece that I've known since she was a knee-high samurai and she's almost 16 and doing kenpo, too.

  Too fast I had to head to the airport and fly back to Texas. Met a character on the plane with a "wicked good" accent. I'll be back in New Bedford again.

April article for subscribers

The April article for subscribers on my site should be posted very soon. The title is The Parker Salutation. It's a little different than previous material. Here's an excerpt.

Typically today’s Kenpo students are taught the long salute and what it means. The common description is (Part 1) “The warrior and scholar come forward to fight, back to back, to take their country back.
(Part 2) I have no weapons, I hide my secret and if I’m forced to use it I pray for forgiveness because I must become an animal”. Additionally, the traditional Shaolin interpret the first part as showing support for the Ming dynasty and by pulling together back-to-back, they can take their country back from the Manchus.

As I have written and taught elsewhere, the Ming term is also translated as enlightenment. Martial arts training is designed to bring enlightenment to the practitioner. I’m sure Mr. Parker would have said that’s because you get light on your feet before you hit the ground.

The article will be found at www.wedlakekenpotv.com. With the new site up and running you can get a subscription for articles only for $29/year or you can get a trial membership for the video site for $1 and add the written material at that time. There are some free articles on the site and podcasts, almost 100 of them, are free, too. Please take a look.

Been hit in the head?

My recent copy of Brain in the News had an article about a new test that detects previously unseen brain injuries. A friend of mine and I were talking about concussions recently since he's had three in car accidents (he was hit from behind at a stop but I don't ride with him anyway). Since martial artists get slapped upside the head now and again, I thought this might be of interest.
http://www.komonews.com/news/health/Finding-unseen-damage-of-traumatic-brain-injury-141187333.html?m=y&smobile=y&clmob=y&c=n

More stuff

I have updated the You Tube channel with some video that has not posted to the new website yet, so here's your chance for a preview.
I've also been writing a monthly article for Gary Ellis on tai chi so you can check that out, too. http://www.garyellistaichi.co.uk/
My Kenpo Karate 201 book is being translated into German! Watch for details.
More podcasts are up, too.

Thanks

If you hear a difference in the sound quality of the podcasts, you can thank Marc Sigle and Lenny Steineke in Esslingen, Germany. They sent me a microphone!

New podcasts

I have uploaded three new podcasts. One is about how Mr. Parker modeled his teaching method, another is a story he used to get us to use the right speed and the third is about my new website. Here are the links.
http://feed.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/3314/mp3.rss
or through i Tunes at
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=381705015

The April article should be up soon, too. You'll find the link here. (You need to be a subscriber to read it.)
http://wedlakekenpotv.com/leewedlake/articles/

The new website is up

www.wedlakekenpotv.com went live this week.
  We combined my two sites, leewedlake.com and kenpotv.net. The goal is to have all the resources available to you in one place. All the 1,000 plus instructional videos are in place along with the monthly articles, online store, podcast, you tube and facebook links. There's a blog button there, too.
  I have almost 50 more videos to upload and monthly articles will keep coming. I plan to re-institute the newsletter, too.
  You can join for $1 and cancel anytime. Please check it out.