2012 In January, following on from the connection with the Szlagowski Karate Association last year it was obvious that they needed to get themselves into the public eye if they wished to reunite with past members and get some acknowledgements up for Wally's past achievements as a pioneer in the martial arts. So to get things started I put a simple website up for them and tutored John Cook on maintaining it. Quite a few past members have now rejoined the fold since discovering there are many of us still active. (the photo is a link)
In March I attended seminar of Jason Griffiths and he always impresses me with his knowledge and skills. It was a good opportunity for Justin and Jordan to experience the old Okinawan way's
In April I held my 8th IBF training day. Being in the smaller venue of Damien and Tracy Ellis's and being on a Saturday I looked at this as being a moderate event and decided more energy would go into the Fight for Life event later in the year. Expectation -30 people, attendance - 82. A great day and inspiring to say the least. In June I took a trip to Quakers Hill to train and teach at the NSW IBF training Day with Bruce Freeman as host. Here I met with Craig B. Hayward, Ziggy Szlagowski and Hans Fricke, a true swordsman with great skills. Terry Riches met with me there.
The next morning Master John Cook picked me up and we headed for Freemans Reach where I met with a lot of Sensei Rob Dobson's contempories. I did a 2 hour grading to show that which Rob had passed on and really just built the bond to our club.
In July I headed up the Queensland to support Peter Hills with his IBF Training Day. We did Sumo and Shredding with Joe Saunders, Aiki jujitsu with Peter, Sambo with Terry Riches, Kenpo 5.0 with Don and Suzanne Woods, and BJJ with Matthew. Good to catch up with old and new friends.
Also in July I took Atsumi along to support another seminar with Jason Griffiths
New member club Kombat Jujutsu under instruction from Jim Nixon was grading Randy for his 2nd Dan and asked if I would give him some support so with Dante Roccisano we attended and were really impressed with the level of skill and character these guys had. A pleasure to be involved.
In September I decided to lead by example and as part of my commitment to keeping students safe and furthering my knowledge I did the Senior 1st Aid course to update my skills.
Soke Tony Ball was paying a visit to Mick Murphy's club so Jessica and I attended and again furthered our knowledge working on Bo and ground work.
AMAC competitions are the only one I find that encompass the non and full contact style of fighting in SA with genuine martial artists in control. Atsumi and Jessica did well. At the end Jess was asked to go into the Full Knockdown Kyokushin rule bouts against a much more experienced and larger mature female. She had her going backwards the entire bout and was a great ambassador for the club.
One of my proudest moments was on October the 28th SA when I hosted the first SA "Fight For Life" fundraiser to help in raising money for the Cancer Council. As you can see there was a great turnout of martial artists. The AMAA posted their event on my FFL SA website and moved their event to the same day and area to compete for attendants, but we still had over 35 different club instructors giving support. The Network is greater than just IBF members and these guys are genuine martial artists you should seek to train with.
It was great to have Kevin and Leanne Walsh over in SA for my event so now in November I returned the favor by fitting in a day on my family holidays in Victoria to take 3 seminars as part of the main "Fight For Life" event. Of course this is global now with friends Mario Schrapp and Peter Hills doing the same in their location interstate and overseas. This was a great initiative by Kevin and raised a tremendous amount of money and solidarity among many different stylists. In December Jason once again was available for a training session. This time however he introduced me to Kurt Graham. With these 2 we had a fantastic day and again it was great to expand the network with a New Zealander who was obviously a very highly regarded technician. Both Chris Gillies and Shawn Donaldson have always worked hard to make these seminars happen and we are grateful to have them as part of the Better Martial Arts Community. Just before the Xmas break Sensei Tim Barnes invited me to join him and Peter Tass as they graded Meredith and Tracy. This is the Kenpo club my son attends so it was great to see these ladies perform the higher level techniques than I was privy to at the kids classes. Great work by both and very deserving of their Blackbelts.
In March I attended seminar of Jason Griffiths and he always impresses me with his knowledge and skills. It was a good opportunity for Justin and Jordan to experience the old Okinawan way's
In April I held my 8th IBF training day. Being in the smaller venue of Damien and Tracy Ellis's and being on a Saturday I looked at this as being a moderate event and decided more energy would go into the Fight for Life event later in the year. Expectation -30 people, attendance - 82. A great day and inspiring to say the least. In June I took a trip to Quakers Hill to train and teach at the NSW IBF training Day with Bruce Freeman as host. Here I met with Craig B. Hayward, Ziggy Szlagowski and Hans Fricke, a true swordsman with great skills. Terry Riches met with me there.
The next morning Master John Cook picked me up and we headed for Freemans Reach where I met with a lot of Sensei Rob Dobson's contempories. I did a 2 hour grading to show that which Rob had passed on and really just built the bond to our club.
In July I headed up the Queensland to support Peter Hills with his IBF Training Day. We did Sumo and Shredding with Joe Saunders, Aiki jujitsu with Peter, Sambo with Terry Riches, Kenpo 5.0 with Don and Suzanne Woods, and BJJ with Matthew. Good to catch up with old and new friends.
Also in July I took Atsumi along to support another seminar with Jason Griffiths
New member club Kombat Jujutsu under instruction from Jim Nixon was grading Randy for his 2nd Dan and asked if I would give him some support so with Dante Roccisano we attended and were really impressed with the level of skill and character these guys had. A pleasure to be involved.
In September I decided to lead by example and as part of my commitment to keeping students safe and furthering my knowledge I did the Senior 1st Aid course to update my skills.
Soke Tony Ball was paying a visit to Mick Murphy's club so Jessica and I attended and again furthered our knowledge working on Bo and ground work.
AMAC competitions are the only one I find that encompass the non and full contact style of fighting in SA with genuine martial artists in control. Atsumi and Jessica did well. At the end Jess was asked to go into the Full Knockdown Kyokushin rule bouts against a much more experienced and larger mature female. She had her going backwards the entire bout and was a great ambassador for the club.
One of my proudest moments was on October the 28th SA when I hosted the first SA "Fight For Life" fundraiser to help in raising money for the Cancer Council. As you can see there was a great turnout of martial artists. The AMAA posted their event on my FFL SA website and moved their event to the same day and area to compete for attendants, but we still had over 35 different club instructors giving support. The Network is greater than just IBF members and these guys are genuine martial artists you should seek to train with.
It was great to have Kevin and Leanne Walsh over in SA for my event so now in November I returned the favor by fitting in a day on my family holidays in Victoria to take 3 seminars as part of the main "Fight For Life" event. Of course this is global now with friends Mario Schrapp and Peter Hills doing the same in their location interstate and overseas. This was a great initiative by Kevin and raised a tremendous amount of money and solidarity among many different stylists. In December Jason once again was available for a training session. This time however he introduced me to Kurt Graham. With these 2 we had a fantastic day and again it was great to expand the network with a New Zealander who was obviously a very highly regarded technician. Both Chris Gillies and Shawn Donaldson have always worked hard to make these seminars happen and we are grateful to have them as part of the Better Martial Arts Community. Just before the Xmas break Sensei Tim Barnes invited me to join him and Peter Tass as they graded Meredith and Tracy. This is the Kenpo club my son attends so it was great to see these ladies perform the higher level techniques than I was privy to at the kids classes. Great work by both and very deserving of their Blackbelts.