Sacramento Martial Arts

Tara and I had a great time with Lee Wedlake in Fresno. Graham Lelliott hosted Mr. Wedlake and I was most pleased to see both of them. On Friday, I went to an all-belt seminar where we looked at the 'gift' techniques. I learned something really cool about Gift of Destiny, which I promptly shared with Tara the next day. She agreed and we made the executive decision to do the technique that way from now on.

I'm amazed at how much I have learned in the last year and a half, since leaving 'formal' instruction.

In addition to this, we worked on form 6 the whole next day. We learned it from start to finish and I learned things in that kata that I had always suspected, but had never been shown.

When I say 'suspected,' I mean that I knew that certain movements had purpose, but was told they didn't. I now know that information to be false. I learned a ton of great stuff and so did Tara.

Lee Wedlake and Graham Lelliott were as great a always and I look forward to our next meeting. Until then, Tara and I will be practicing diligently and getting ready for our next kenpo adventure. :)

We also look forward to sharing our new knowledge with our students and our new kenpo friends.

American Kenpo Karate is a hard/soft style of martial arts, created by Ed Parker, designed to promote good self-esteem, confidence, self-reliance, excellent defensive skills and is a lot of fun. If you want to learn the ultimate in self defense, we teach Kenpo Karate in Rancho Cordova at Mather Sports Facility.    

Kenpo Karate

Eugene Got His Brown Belt!!

A couple of nights ago, we were very happy to be able to promote Eugene Brathwaite to Third Brown. He gave his all and tested for about an hour. We know how hard he'd been working before the test, so this was really just an opportunity for him to show off what he has been working so hard on.

His Uke, Steve Holland, did a great job kicking, striking and falling down a lot.

We have found the areas where we, as instructors, need to improve our teaching and I believe Eugene has found some areas where he could put more attention as a student.

Overall, we were very proud of him. We were also pleased to have Arin, a black belt who has been working with us lately, sit on the board as well.

On another note, I went and visited a Trevor Haines' school in Citrus Heights and we were invited to their next inter-school tournament. When it happens, I'll be sure to let our students know so they can get a taste of what competition is like. I'll be visiting another school very soon as well and hope to get back down to Santa Rosa soon to visit Dr. Dave.

Tara and I will be heading out to see Lee Wedlake on the 16th and might go to his all-belts seminar the night before in Fresno. If any of you are interested in going, see me for details. The Friday evening event is $25 and open to all belts. I believe Steve was talking about going, so perhaps you all can discuss carpooling. Tara and I will likely be spending the night so we can go to the all-day seminar the next day.

It'll be great to see Eugene this Tuesday wearing a black gi for the first time.

Congratulations Eugene!!

--Amy

American Kenpo Karate is a hard/soft style of martial arts, created by Ed Parker, designed to promote good self-esteem, confidence, self-reliance, excellent defensive skills and is a lot of fun. If you want to learn the ultimate in self defense, we teach Kenpo Karate in Rancho Cordova at Mather Sports Facility.    

Sacramento Martial Arts

January 2008 News

Last night, we had 4 visiting black belts come to our class. They are kenpo 'orphans' and we are hoping to convince them to make SKK their new home. All four were very competent and a lot of fun to play with.

Eugene will be up for testing for brown belt at the end of this month and we know he'll do great. The new year has started off a little slowly in the adult class, but we have two new students in the kids' class. Danielle and Alex have joined us and are having a great time.

Steve is a ton of fun to harass in the adult class and he takes it so well. It could be because he can't hear what I'm saying. Bryan was gone for 3 weeks, as was Tara and Eugene and Kevin is taking this month off.

Tara and I will be seeing Lee Wedlake next month for a seminar on form 6. I also may be heading up to Milt Guinette's school in Oregon for a seminar with Phil Porter and possibly Lee Epperson. Bryan visits their school on a fairly consistent basis and has all good things to say.

I visited two other schools recently, Don Snider's in Gold River and Bob Langley's school in (I think) Citrus Heights. Both of them made me feel very welcome and, as always, I picked up a few new little drills and such to torture our own students with.

The Kenpo Continuum book is well on its way to being done. I've been getting a few last minute entries and I've been having to do a fair amount of editing on some of the ones I've received. But it's moving along and I'm getting quotes from printers to get this show on the road. I hope to have it done no later than the end of Feb. Hopefully sooner, depending on how long the printer takes.

Oh, and most importantly, Tara and I were sporting our new electric blue matching gis the other night. We looked and felt spiffy. We've decided that blue is the new black, which are our school colors (black and blue). :)

See you on the mats!

--Amy

American Kenpo Karate is a hard/soft style of martial arts, created by Ed Parker, designed to promote good self-esteem, confidence, self-reliance, excellent defensive skills and is a lot of fun. If you want to learn the ultimate in self defense, we teach Kenpo Karate in Rancho Cordova at Mather Sports Facility.    

Sacramento Martial Arts

Camp Kenpo 2007

The event was a blast!

This event was attended by a lot of people who Tara had trained with coming up and she was pleased to have her old peeps meet her new.

Tara and I went up and brought my husband (purple belt) and our student Chris (also a purple belt and posts on this forum) and I was quite proud that they made us look so good.

Scott put on a really fun event.

We saw Bob White, who taught sparring. He's a terrific guy and a great instructor. This is the second time I've seen him and he was a lot of fun. We worked on guaging distances, the importance of turning the supporting leg on several kicks and a lot more.

Frank Trejo taught us some wonderful lockflow drills. Tara and I were putting each other in, then getting out of quite a few locks. Frank was in fine form and was showing us all sorts of cool stuff. We will be doing that lockflow stuff in class tomorrow night, I'm sure.

I met Huk Planas for the first time. We worked on Flashing Wings primarily. We discussed the importance of moving past the target to be in position for the next strike and he also talked about how lots of people in kenpo don't have good basics and how everything is just basics. So now he goes around teaching basics.

In Scott Halsey's seminar, we did a giant, rotating technique line. Tons of fun. It's great to do it with all black belts so we don't have to spend any time explaining techniques. We just whip, bang, smacked our way through.

Ed Planas did a seminar on sticks. It was fun. Tara and I would've enjoyed it more, but it was the last seminar on the last day and we hadn't gotten any sleep the night before. I'd like to say it was because of all the fun and merriment we had, but mostly it was because SOMEONE in our cabin snored like a buzzsaw ALL NIGHT LONG. I'm not going to name names because Chris knows who he is.

We did enjoy making references to our lack of sleep for the entire day on Sunday. Chris now enjoys a unique sort of reputation. One of our cabin-mates took his mattress and went to go sleep in his car. He probably got a lot better sleep than the rest of us did.

On Saturday night, Huk and Frank played the guitar and several of us sang. That was fun, but I'm a bit hoarse today.

I was also in somewhat fine form giving out rations of razzing to anyone in my vicinity. All in good fun and people gave it back just as readily. My kind of good time.

I'm sure Tara will have further input.

--Amy

American Kenpo Karate is a hard/soft style of martial arts, created by Ed Parker, designed to promote good self-esteem, confidence, self-reliance, excellent defensive skills and is a lot of fun. If you want to learn the ultimate in self defense, we teach Kenpo Karate in Rancho Cordova at Mather Sports Facility.    

Sacramento Martial Arts

We've had an eventful time recently. We started seven new students this month. Our four siblings came back in our kids' class (Anaela, Jasmine, Ariel and Frankie!! Good to have you guys back!!) We also had Angelica in the kids' class and her dad Kevin in the adult's class. We also were glad to have Kaitlyn in our adult's class.

We'd like to take a moment to congratulate Misha on earning her yellow belt last Thursday. A job well done- keep up the good work!! Her sister Jacci also received her yellow belt the following class. Both have improved tremendously since their new rank was strapped on. We're very pleased with their progress.

I went to a seminar in Fresno with Lee Wedlake on Saturday and we worked all the weapons techniques for about 6 hours. It was a tremendous and amazing event. He said it was just his job, but that doesn't make me any less grateful for the information. I learned a ridiculous amount of material. He will be coming back in December in Fresno to teach us the inside and outside of form six. Tara will be going with me next time and Chris has also expressed an interest in attending.

Eugene is doing a great job getting ready for his third brown test. Trish has been hitting harder and getting more proficient as time goes on. I'm also pleased that Aaron is getting such a good grasp of the material. He and Bryan love to smack each other!

Our 'other' Arin tested and was awarded his yellow belt recently as well and he's doing a great job understanding the material and relaxing in the face of an imminent attack.

In the kids' class, Jadon did a great job last night reacting appropriately and giving his best. Good Job Jadon!

American Kenpo Karate is a hard/soft style of martial arts, created by Ed Parker, designed to promote good self-esteem, confidence, self-reliance, excellent defensive skills and is a lot of fun. If you want to learn the ultimate in self defense, we teach Kenpo Karate in Rancho Cordova at Mather Sports Facility.    

Sacramento Kenpo Karate

Congratulations to Connor, Jadon and Jessica

Last Thursday, Jadon, Jessica and Connor earned their sparring stripes for orange belt. We run a system of 5 stripes per belt level for the children's belt levels including stripes for techniques, basics, kata, sets and sparring. This is another step towards orange belt for each of them and we are very proud of their progress.

In addition, Jessica earned her first green academic achievement/upstanding behavior stripe- these stripes go on the other tip of the belt- apart from the main 5 and can be earned for having good grades or for improved behavior or focus in class or for just going above and beyond. This was the case for Jessica- she went above and beyond to help Jadon learn to spar better on Thursday night. It was so neat to see the oldest in our kid's class taking time out to help out our youngest student. She encouraged him, gave him pointers and even left herself open sometimes so that he could gain some confidence in closing in and hitting a target on a larger opponent. Well done Jessica and great work and progress by all!!

Keep up the good work kids!! :)

Tara :)

P.S. We also had a great visit from a black belt, Richard, who worked out with us Monday night. We're hoping he'll come back and work out with us again.

American Kenpo Karate is a hard/soft style of martial arts, created by Ed Parker, designed to promote good self-esteem, confidence, self-reliance, excellent defensive skills and is a lot of fun. If you want to learn the ultimate in self defense, we teach Kenpo Karate in Rancho Cordova at Mather Sports Facility.    

Sacramento Martial Arts

Many Changes!!

Tara and I are both back from vacation and are in training mode! We've upped the class workouts to make sure everyone is getting a good sweat going.

We have several 'new' students. Jacci and Misha are sisters who came from Kovar's and have been doing a great job. They are getting used to the contact that we make in our classes, but they're hanging in like troopers.

We also have a new student, Arin, who has joined us and we're glad to have him.

Trish, Aaron and Chris all got their purple belts and we're very proud of them and their progress.

We went to Mr. Speakman's camp in Vegas in June and I got hurt pretty badly. That happened at the end of June and my hip is still not back to where it was. After returning from the camp and after much discussion, Tara and I decided that the 5.0 curriculum wasn't right for us, so we withdrew our charter.

We are working with a number of kenpo seniors who have graciously given us some of their time. Tara and I will be going to a kenpo camp in Whiskeytown in the middle of Sept., where we expect to be energized and bombarded with kenpo information. Huk Planas will be there, along with a number of other kenpo greats.

We have recently had two brown belts from a local Tracy school come to visit us. We hope they like what they see and decide to stay.

Oh, and the Kenpo Continuum book is coming along nicely. The deadline is extended until the end of August. Please get your submissions in as soon as possible!

American Kenpo Karate is a hard/soft style of martial arts, created by Ed Parker, designed to promote good self-esteem, confidence, self-reliance, excellent defensive skills and is a lot of fun. If you want to learn the ultimate in self defense, we teach Kenpo Karate in Rancho Cordova at Mather Sports Facility.