Play Dates

As always, Boston was fun and interesting.  Met a new branch of the Uechi clan and instituted something that I think should continue.

Paul DiRienzo of Metrowest Academy is a fun guy and a great host.  He's gathered or created (since that's what good instructors do) a fine set of people with good skills and open minds.  Logic of Violence and ConCom over two days.  Went well.

Spent most of midweek with Dr. Coray.  Some light hiking and quality time with her mastiff/pit mix.

Dinner with Wes and his lovely wife, L.  As always, insanely deep talk.  L has insights into a world I've never seen.  Wes is brilliant and entirely too self-effacing.  I think it would embarrass certain people, but sometime I'd like to do a post on people who should be household names in martial arts and self-defense.  People who are a full order of magnitude better than the 'masters' and champions you know, but teach quietly in their garages and basements; write treatises that they then file away.  If I ever write that post, Wes will feature.

Saw Jeff for just a minute during the week.  He was teaching a kid's class.  Jeff would also be featured in any piece about amazing martial artists who should be famous.

Met with Erik Kondo, for a big project that a few of us are working on.  More info on that later.  But it was enjoyable.  Erik is fun, intelligent... I have three pages of notes from our little breakfast meeting.

Then taking pictures for the cover of the Joint Lock video due out early in 2014.
This is not the picture, but the sign in the salon window was too cool so Doc Coray agreed to put on a lock:

And an evening class on Threat Assessment for YMAA Boston.  Ben was a warm person, a good host and he didn't mind getting bent and twisted for a cover.  Class went well, I think, but it was getting a touch frustrating, in that most of the teaching for the trip so far was talk.  It's important.  Most of the people who come to play with me have good physical skills.  But just because it's important doesn't mean I don't get bored.  I totally needed to get hit.

Which brings us to Saturday and the point of this post.  Molly-Mac came up with a last minute option for my free weekend, a place to brawl.  People came from New Jersey and Connecticut (I think those were the farthest) for a play date.

This was the deal:  Not a seminar.  No fee.  Donations would be gratefully accepted and split with the host.  Then it was more or less the VPPG formula.  Each participant got asked, "What do you want to work on?"

And that's what we did.  Multiple bad guys was fun.  Nate took some impact on that one.  David asked some tough de-escalation questions.  Art wanted to play with close-range power generation.  Someone wanted to play with close range kicks.  I got to push my knee a little (first ukemi practice since the knee injury).

If time allows, I think Play Dates will be part of my regular traveling schedule.  Any time I have an extra day and a venue...