Sunday, August 31, 2008

Mini-camp success!

The Labor Day weekend mini-camp was attended by 15 children and 20 adults from six states.
Steve White's seminar for business owners was very well received. The children's seminar was co-taught by Florida's Tim Walker and South Carolina's Bruce Meyer. Bruce remarked that one of the kids talked with him afterwards and told him the last time he had visited he was a yellow belt and now he's going for brown. All the kids had a good time and got participation certificates. Thanks to K. Zwarg's Karate and Gulf Coast Kenpo for their support. (That's Tim in the photo).
Saturday's seminar was kicked off by Mr. Meyer, who taught aspects of developing and executing self-defense demos and competition routines. The battle cry was "You gotta sell it!"
Steve White followed with a dynamic presentation of how to increase your knowledge by looking into your sequences instead of just collecting more "stuff".
A lunch break included some presentations. Jim Middlebrooks, an artist from South Carolina and black belt under Bruce Meyer, was present. Jim does portraits of fallen soldiers for the families and gave me a book of them. Two members of the Special Forces Motorcycle Club were on hand to be part of the presentation, Bo McCormick and Bill Hood, shown in the photo below. SFMC is giving Jim a certificate of appreciation for his efforts. We had all the veterans of the armed Forces present jump in the photo too, also below.


Brad Congress of Bradley's Fine Jewelry here in Ft. Myers presented Steve White with a Five Swords pendant. Steve's birthday was recent, so we had a cake for him and Brad gave him his gift.

Ed Cabrera taught a great class on infusing boxing into Kenpo, followed by my presentation on the overkill principle. The seminar was concluded with a short session in which some of us present who knew Mr. Parker told a few stories and answered questions. Ed Cabrera, Lance Soares, Tony Velada, Bruce Meyer, Dr. Francis Rene, Steve White, and myself comprised a panel, which was a lot of fun.
Many in the group joined us for dinner that evening. Sunday morning the out-of-state participants left, some of them had to change their flights home due to Hurricane Gustav.
Below is an e-mail I received after the camp.

Dear Mr. Wedlake: I just want to drop you a short note to tell you how much I enjoyed the camp.
"Drinking from a fire hydrant" is a big understatement! Each one of the segments presented by you, Mr. White, Mr. Meyer and Mr. "Eddie" Cabrera was unique and well thought of with many useful 'take away' concepts.
Just as important, it was a lot of fun to work out with buddies from all over the country and exchange ideas with them.
Finally, getting insights about Mr. Parker's life and personality from people that met him was a wonderful ending.
All in all, it was a terrific experience... Thank you for making it happen!
Cordially / Carlos
If you were there, thanks for your support. If you missed it, I hope you can make a future event.

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