Martial University and Synergy

Saturday at MU was spectacular. Good people who I really like- Kris, Lawrence, Restita, Sherril, the Johns, Matt, Bob, Aaron and others who have become sort of an annual thing. I enjoyed my classes and thought they went well, had enough time to drop into Bob's "Street Judo" class...

Here's the difference between someone who knows what he's talking about and someone who doesn't- discussing arm bars Bob said that learning them in steps is okay for the dojo but in real life you have to train to recognize the opportunity and then grab it... I wanted to give him a big hug.

The best part, most important for me, was the class on stages. I hesitate to call the people who attended "students". It was an incredible energy- with the bare framework of what I wanted to teach and their questions and their observations it made a feed-back loop of data and insight. The class ran over, but this ninety minutes could easily make a book. A really, really useful book and possibly an easier way to organize the information on violence. It was a good time.

If you wanted one of the "Toughest Men Alive" teaching you strangles or a gentle elderly refugee showing you aikido; a stunt woman teaching baton fighting or to work with a Chinese straight sword; if you wanted to explore the differences between Russian and American judo, experiment with healing massage or Japanese calligraphy or learn to break a rock, you should have been there.