White Crane visitor

Mattson Sensei:

I hope you are doing well and don't mind my emailing you. I am a long-time Goju-Ryu student of Kimo Wall and Kobudo Student of Gakiya Yoshiaki.

I have for the last few years been researching and training in a few of the martial arts that have been considered likely influences on early Okinawan martial arts, including several forms of White Crane and Five Ancestors boxing, both here and in Malaysia / Singapore. My friend and White Crane (Shouting Crane and Ancestral Crane) instructor, Eric Ling will be coming to the US this fall (from Malaysia), and I wanted to see if you might be interested in hosting him for a seminar while he is in the USA. His teaching style is highly energetic, and fully of two-man drills and discussions of the principles and poems that lend so much information to the techniques and forms.

Please let me know if this would be of interest to you, or if you know of any other schools that may be interested in learning some Shouting or Ancestral Crane from an excellent source.

You can find more information about Eric Ling at his blog: http://eric88ling.wordpress.com/ . I would also highly recommend spending some time on his Youtube channel to get and appreciation of some of the materials available to him. http://www.youtube.com/user/eric88ling

There are also a few videos of me demonstrating some of Eric's material at a recent Gasshuku here: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BOVW&view=videos . Look for the videos marked "White Crane..." and "Redirection"


Best Regards,


Best Regards,


Russ Smith
http://www.Goju-Ryu.info/

Feeding Crane Seminar

Hello Mattson sensei,
Its been a long time since we have communicated, and you may not remember me. My name is Fred Lohse, and I am a student of Kimo Wall's. A number of years ago Kimo sensei brought Liu Chang'i, the head of the Liu family Feeding Crane system, to one of your summer camps. This year he is bringing him back to the US, and I will be hosting a seminar with him in Boston. It is actually the weekend before your summer camp on the Cape this year- July 18&19. Liu sifu will be doing a 2 day seminar covering some of the basic forms of his system, applications, and the power development drills that put so much "oomph" behind his technique. I don't know if any of your students in the area would be interested, but if so I would be happy to pass on the info for the seminar, or if you have any suggestions for folks to contact in the area, I would be more than happy to get the information to them directly. Since its the week before your annual event, the timing might not be good, but Liu sifu's system and personal skills are excellent, and very interesting to those of us who practice the Okinawan arts, and folks may be interested in a martial-arts dedicated July!
In any case, I hope you are well and enjoying Florida. Take care, and do let me know if you or any of your students would be interested in attending, or in more information.
Thank you for your time.
yours,
Fred Lohse
Kodokan Boston
================
Hi Fred:
I don't often go to my gmail account and I didn't see this email until today.

If you send me the information, I'll post it on my website. Most Uechi practitioners visit the website at least once a week.

Best,
George
==============

Hello Mattson sensei,

Good to hear from you. I hope you are doing well. Thanks for the quick reply. Sorry about the delay on my end- I had to finish getting the registration form done, schedule finalized, and so on.

Thanks very much for offering to put this info on your website. I've attached a Word document with the seminar information, and a registration form. I hope that folks will be interested. I know you have seen Liu sifu in action- his power is incredible, and the way he moves definitely speaks to a connection to the Okinawan arts.

Right now, I've limited the seminar to 25 people, and we have about 15 spots filled. However, if we get a good response, I'm going to rent a larger space, so if folks are interested, do get in touch with me as soon as possible.

Let me know if there is any more information I can get to you, or any questions I can answer.

Meanwhile, take care, and enjoy the start of summer.

cheers,

Fred

Note: e-mail Fred (fwliii@comcast.net) for an application.

Interest in IUKF "Titles"

Dear Sensei Mattson,

I enjoy your newsletters very much and I have a couple of questions for you if you don't mind. We are setting up standards for titled instructors (Renshi, Kyoshi, Shihan) for our organization and I would be very interested in the standards you use in your organization. Would it be possible for you to send me these standards? Also, how do I go about ordering your pending new book? I have greatly enjoyed your other books and I'm sure this one will be terrific as well.

Take care and kindest regards. By the way, I don't know if you remember it or not but I had written you when your pet died a while back that I had an elderly pit bull myself. Sadly, she died a couple of months ago. It was very hard and she is greatly missed.

Take care.

John Shipes

OSMKKF US Director


Hi John:

Thanks for the note and kind words.

IUKF has a “titles” committee that works with students who have been recommended for their different “masters” degrees. In a sense, we have patterned our “titles” on the advance degree programs in universities. . . with the exception that all our “titles” relate to the betterment of our Uechi-ryu.

The Shihan title relates to the teaching of our art and is predicated on a person’s ability to teach. Usually, this means an extensive “apprentice” program followed by an “internship” supervised by the individual’s teacher.

The titles of Renshi, Kyoshi and Hanshi are basically honorary award, given to senior practitioners based on work or services that have measurably helped the Uechi-ryu community. This can take the form of a teaching method, thesis on an important subject or other “life experiences” accomplishments the individual has performed. The Titles Committee’s job is to help the candidate determine which avenue to take in presenting existing work or future work in a form that will be acceptable to the committee. Once this requirement has been completed, the committee submits the name to the board of directors and the title is awarded at SummerFest.

There are minimum rank and years studying as well as minimum age requirements involved.

Hope this helps.

Best,

George Mattson

==============

News From Rob Kolenc & his Journey

Dear friends. How are you all doing? I haven't seen many of you for a while and I feel badly about that. In my defense, things have been going at breakneck speed around here and it took all I had to keep the wheels on and just see the kids now and then! 

2008 was really crappy. No other way to say it.  I got some kind of arthritis bug that my body is stil trying to clear. My buddy John was diagnosed with cancer right after he came back from his honeymoon, and then the economy went south! At this point, I think we've cleared all the bad karma out of the system.

It is definitely time to look forward, reframe to a positive attitude, appreciate all the good things we already have in our lives and HAVE SOME SERIOUS FUN! So I'm leaving on Thursday for my dream motorcycle adventure ride - riding the Ice Roads of the Yukon and Northwest Territories up past the Arctic Circle and onto the Arctic Ocean. I'll be taking a lot of pictures and movie clips and posting the story on my trip blog over the next month. I think I have some real challenges ahead of me riding in that cold, but I think I have the right gear and team in place to pull it off. 

If you think you'd have fun tagging along with me as my "virtual passenger", I will have a helmet cam in the passenger's seat for you and I will be posting pictures to my blog. I invite you to check out the trip websites below. Also, feel free to pass this on to people that you think might enjoy it. 

I hope you're all well and thriving at least mentally if not financially (grin). DO keep in touch. You're the folks that I care about but don't see often enough!

Cheers!

Rob

P.S. The ride's official website >> punchcancerintheface.com

To see the trip blog, stories and pictures, updated every few days starting Thursday go to this website >>  Canadian Arctic Winter Ride; Ice Roads and the Dempster Highway - ADVrider

More WinterFest feedback. . .

hi,

it taking me a while to get this out had family in town right after winterfest. winterfest was alot of fun. my experience there may be a lil unique to others cause it was a refresher for me, i hadn't study uechi-ryu since the age of 12. but everyone made it very comfortable for me and help me follow along in the seminars. i liked to specially thank Sensei Darin Yee, who spent some one on one time with me. while the class was doing a practice drill to a kata i didn't fully remember, he work with me individually on the kata, and throughout the weekend whenever he had time. i exspecially enjoyed the grappling seminar. i currently am studing judo and it was nice to uechi using other techniques that fit there art to make them better martial artist. so thanks, i was alot of fun & hope to try get up there to train with you again.

steven gower

More WinterFest Critique

Dear George, 

this what my first Winterfest and, after having such a good time and learning so much, I know I will be back for more WinterFests.  What a great place to train, right in the heart of Mt. Dora in the most beautiful and quaint town. 

One of the things I really liked about this camp compared to SummerFest was the intimacy of training with fewer people.  This allowed more one on one with the instructors, who were each so willing to stop and answer questions or break down a move.  Each instructor was very knowledgeable and great fun to work with…egos left at the doors, as always.

The variety of seminars was wonderful, including learning a great Bo kata with George and Joe; amazing and effective ground work (plus) taught by Roy Bedard; some intense stretching with Jerry; an interesting variation of the wauke block by Darin Ye; an awesome new kata shown and learned by Fedele; and (of course) working with George.

I liked George’s variation of the soft arm pounding, almost like sticking hands.  Very cool!  Plus, I learned a better way of blocking I had not used.  If I was closer to you, I would be sneaking over to train every chance I had. 

I will have to admit missing a bit of the seminar.  My head was elsewhere, getting ready for a Dan test, so please accept my apology for leaving out anything.  This brings me to another great learning experience I had at this Winterfest: learning how to make my worst my best.  I will have to admit that I was totally out of my comfort zone, having to test with George’s student, Tim…someone I had never worked with. It taught me about myself and enabled me to practice adapting with a different timing and slightly different application difference.  It was a great experience and one that I am thankful for.  Tim was a great partner, easy to work with, and he made me look good. 

As far as what I would like to see, I think it would be good to have a larger soft area to test on.  As I was doing my designated kata, I ended up having to transition from a raised hard foam mat to a wood deck in the middle of the kata, which breaks the flow of the kata. 

I would love to see more ground work, especially for me as a woman.  I feel like that is my Achilles heel and could greatly benefit from this.

I missed fellowshipping with some of the others after the seminar.  We were limited to how many people could fit in the restaurants and some ended up going in different directions for dinner.  How about a small party or place we can all get together after dinner on Saturday night? 

All in all, I had a blast.  Thank you George, Susan, and all who made this possible.

…I’ll be back.

Best regards,

Vicki

WinterFest 2009

George I

Thank you for the invitation to Winterfest.  Once again, it was a great time.  Saw old friends, made new friends and enjoyed some really good training.  All the seminars were very interesting and informative.  I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend.  Keep up the outstanding service to the Uechi community.  I look forward to next years Winterfest and hopefully I can make to your Summerfest.

Thank you again,

George II

AKA George Schriefer