Spring 2013 Promotional CONGRATULATIONS!

Congratulations are in order to IOK’s David Chan in achieving the rank of San Dan at our group’s recent Spring Promotional.  David performed extremely well as was expected and is a credit to the dojo.  Hard work in Uechi-Shohei system, as well as a constant effort to expand and improve his martial arts base is what makes David an outstanding karateka.   IOK is certainly glad to have him.

At this promotion, our board of affiliates were also blessed with the presence of Jack Summers who appeared in fine form.  Jack was sure to reminded us not to let pass by an opportunity for teachers to emphasize hip recovery in our students’ forms training.  Hip exchange is critical to maintaining center through movement.  We are all wise to keep in mind that allowing training tools that assist in developing this habit to go under utilized can lead to an atrophy of this very basic concept in our karate.   It is easy to allow bad habits to creep in.

Congratulations to all the other candidates who were promoted from other dojos.   Thank you as usual to all participating partners and board members who helped out fir the day.  Some cool pictures of the group.

R. Miller Video Trailer

The full trailer for our pal Rory’s new DVD release is out.  Dave and I made a couple of cameo’s.  I hope we added some value beyond Dave’s smashing good looks.

Some really good stuff in here for anyone teaching MA or SD  …a bucket of golden nuggets.

“Facing Violence” Rory Miller (YMMA Publishers)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvlqicOBSjQ

-Billy G.

Blog: Institute of Combative Arts

Our good friend David Chan has a new blog called the Institute of Combative Arts.  Check it out if you haven’t yet.

2010 All Okinawan Karate Tournament – Seiryu Kata

Another vid just wandered into the inbox.  Seiryu David style.  Enjoy.

More Good Stuff…

News Wrap-up From David Chan in Okinawa:
Well IOK’s Man in the field, David Chan is now sadly back in Iraq “at Work” for the Army.  Keep him in your prayers.  David’s short trip to Okinawa seems to have been an incredibly inspiring one.  From what we have gathered from his emails David has;
-Trained with multiple world class Okinawa Master instructors within the Okikukai organization.
-Met, stayed with and trained with some of our Okikukai karate family from Eastern Europe.
-In addition to Shohei-Uechi Ryu Masters, met and Trained with Goju Ryu as well as Kendo system Masters.
-Participated as a competitor in the famed All Okinawa Tournament, advancing in both Kata and Kumite as the only USA Representative in the tournament this year.
-Has had individual training instruction from the All Okinawa Tournament First and Second Place Kumite World Champions.
-Was invited to test for Nidan rank, and passed in a test, where at least two other candidates were actually failed by the Okikukai testing board.  He even called the dojo for Jack’s blessing to test!  Now that’s a class act.

Good luck to David

One of our black belts, David Chan, left today for deployment in Iraq.  Best of luck to him and the rest of our soldiers.

Bushiken Board Break

Last Friday David and I had some fun producing kindling.  Here’s a video of David demonstrating a thumb strike through a board.

New Heavy Bag!

Many thanks to David for donating a new 6ft 100lb leather heavy bag to the dojo.  We just hung it up today and gave it a few good kicks to make sure it works properly.  Check it out.

This is going be a useful complement to our growing arsenal of training tools that I’m sure everybody is going to enjoy.