Thank you to all the students and instructors who went to the September Kenpo camp in Las Vegas Nevada this past weekend. I hope that you learned a ton and had a great experience. I particularly enjoyed when we were all able to go out for Sushi at the Bellagio Hotel.
My favorite part is always watching my instructor Mr. Mills on stage. The longer I’m with him, the faster he becomes and also the harder he hits! It’s truly amazing witness and experience. As usual, I learned a ton and will bring back the knowledge and insights to the studio. More on that soon.
I also enjoyed having the privilege of teaching two seminars at the camp. One was on the American Kenpo Karate International’s Centerline Set (basic version) and the other was on one of our exclusive internalization patterns that connects our techniques, sets, forms, freestyle and drills. It was fun to run everyone through and see some light bulbs “turn on.” I think I will continue that seminar and do a “part 3″ at the March 2007 AKKI camp.
Speaking of the March camp - it will be a milestone event for many reasons. Mr. Mills will be turning 60 … he will have been in the art of Kenpo for 40 years … and the 10th anniversary of the founding of the American Kenpo Karate International association will have been reached. If I had to guess, this will be a must attend event!
I also wanted to take this time to congratulate Mr. George Thomsen on his promotion to second degree black belt. His advancement was definitely well deserved and he earned every bit of it. I seriously couldn’t have been more proud of him. He got out there and moved with precision, explosion and 100% control. For not having known he was going to test, he sure ended up having a great time and made it look easy.
Christine and Jess also jumped out during the first test (by jump I mean I told them to get out there) and did a great job representing our studio on their way to brown belt. Glad to see you two get out there, make things happen, and have some fun. Great work to both of you as well!
This just goes to show why it’s important to keep up with your training and to always expect the unexpected. If you keep diligent in your training - treating each lesson as if you might be tested - you won’t have (as many) worries when you’re actually told to get out there in front of 30+ black belts.
The road trip back home proved to be an adventure as we had to take the back roads to get around a horrible car accident that blocked both lanes going into and out of Las Vegas. I have no idea how long people had to sit there before getting through. All I know is that we didn’t sit there and wait for it to clear up and found an alternate route. It felt good to get back home about 8 hours later (usually a 5 hour trip).
I will be posting photos here in the next few days once I get them from Jess. Stay tuned!
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