China Lake Martial Arts LLC

The sharing of knowledge continues. Today we conducted training on the Okinawan dance Chinpe with senior instructors from Mexico, Italy and the US. Chinpe is one of the dances left to us by Ahnan. https://www.amazon.com/Okinawan-Kata-Ahnan-Bat//B086L8G6TR

I am subject to Jury Duty the week of 14 DEC 2020. Each day I will receive an update as the whether or not I am to appear at the court for the next day. I will post updates here, and notify all students via email or text message if I am unable to conduct online classes.

Bugeisha is happy to announce that it has over 45 authors that have joined the family, here is a partial list: John Sells Bruno Ballardini Sergio Hernández Belt...rán Kiyoshi Nishime Cesar Borkowski Alan Dollar Marilyn Fierro Bruce Heilman Anthony C. Marquez Greg Lindquist George Mattson Franco Sanguinetti Gerard Senese Dan Smith Russ Smith Chris Thomas James Walters Don Warrener Devorah Yoshiko Dometrich Walt Young Manny Saavedra And more to come. Bugeisha is set to publish the first issue in Q1 2021. Thanks to all of you who have joined the mailing list to receive email notifications. If you have not you can join here. www.bugeisha.net

I received a scam email today. This is similar to one that our school received a few years ago: Hello, my name is Susan and my son name is Charles 16 years old will be spending his Holiday in your State and I will like him to use his time to learn things to boost his ability in life. I will like to know if you will be available to take him on every afternoon, someone will always drive him to your house, kindly let me know the cost of your... teaching for A MONTH, just 1 hours per day for Monday, Wednesday, Friday so that we can arrange on payment because I live in 1508 Ranch Acres Dr Huntsville, TX 77340, USA I will be waiting for your reply on info bellow: 1. YOUR CHARGES FOR AN HOUR 2. TOTAL CHARGES FOR 1 MONTH THAT HE WILL BE TAUGHT 3 TIMES PER WEEK. 3. FULL NAME AND ADDRESS WITH ZIP CODE 4. MOBILE NUMBER Please don't hesitate to e-mail with your total charges. here is my mobile number (936) 255-3134 you can also send me text Thanks and waiting to read from you. Thank you

We now have 4 published books for our style. There is a description and link to the book listing Amazon with each picture.

My 100 Kata Day Practice has completed.

Tomorrow is the 100 Kata for Okinawa Day. In honor of Okinawan Karate we will execute a total of 100 repetitions of a set of Okinawan forms. My personal plan for this is to execute the forms in the list below. After each form is completed, I will post one snapshot of a posture characteristic of each form. Students are encouraged to participate. If you would like your photo included, please send them to me and I will post them. The set of forms you execute are based on your ch...oice and knowledge. The Plan: * Chong U 1 * Chong U 2 * Chong U 3 * Chong U 4 * Chong U 5 * Unibu * Rohai * Chinsu * Chinpe * Wanduan * Wanshu * Jumu * Nichin * Ei Loong Kuen https://www.facebook.com/events/765840817593907

Practicing break falls is a regular part of our practice. I've found people are much more likely to experience a fall than needing to defend themselves. I just received a message from a student's mother. An 11 year old student was carrying her 4 month old brother. Somehow she tripped and ended up falling while holding the baby. She managed to fall correctly such that neither she nor the baby was harmed or bruised! I'm so proud of her!

Congratulations to Lenora for her promotion to youth red belt today! She's worked long and hard to achieve this. Now she transitions to the adult curriculum. This was the first time we've conducted an examination over Zoom.

I posted this on another forum talking about what people's first black belt test was like. This was mine: It was in 1981 and I was 18 I think. It took several hours. Repeated rounds of basics, forms, kumite with the black belts. At the end I almost couldn't stand and nearly fell over when I was about to do Bassai Dai for the Nth time. I was so tired when I got home I couldn't sleep. Lots of nice bruises from it. I think I passed some blood in my urine too. No broken bones. It was a proper rite of passage.

Our martial development begins with the physical aspect, followed by the energetic and finally the spiritual aspect. Without having each of these properly developed and taught in the right order you cannot reach the higher levels. Case in point is our Tai Chi. Historically it wasn't taught until the student had about 25 years of training. At that point the student would be 29-30 years old, and a seasoned martial artist. This Tai Chi was taught to the guards at the imperial pa...lace by the masters of our art. These guards were already extremely strong and well trained, and the Tai Chi took them to even higher levels. Fast forwards to teaching today. I'll have people come to learn who have little to no martial arts background to learn Tai Chi. They'll become healthier and learn some applications, but be unwilling or unable to partake in the more martial aspects of training. I even had one person join for a couple classes and then decide not to continue because, in his words, the form looked like a random walk and didn't have the symmetry he thought it should have. On the opposite end of the scale I'll have people that have been doing martial arts for decades and who are very accomplished come to train with me. When they learn the Tai Chi they are totally blown away and it changes everything for them and elevates them to levels they didn't know were even there. You cannot expect to reach higher levels without putting in the hard work to get there.

This is an interesting article with application to how one both learns and teaches. https://www.scientificamerican.com//we-learn-faster-when-/

Funny story from last night's Zoom class. I was leading the warm ups, and since I like to change the exercises from time to time, I decided to have the class do side planks. I asked the group how long we should do the side plank for. One of the participants responded "2 minutes". I thought that might be a bit much for the group and I asked if they really mean't two minutes. "Yes, it's a requirement in the military physical fitness test." "OK, 2 minutes it is." I responded and got down and assumed the side plank position and started the timer. I heard "Oh, I thought you mean't the front plank." I started laughing. We were now going to do 2 minutes on each side of the body. The side plank is more difficult than the front plank. At the end of 2 minutes there was carnage on the floor :).

My morning gym partners all lined up and waiting to work out with me :). They can be colorful, but they always weigh in on what's best for me! Oh, and the staff takes part too.

We have a book nearing the point it can be published, another one I'm currently writing, and more planned. I'll announce each book and give a synopsis once it's about to hit Amazon.

Blind Training. One of our late Grandmasters from the early 1800's, Ei Wong, was blind. Besides the many incredible forms he left us, he also gave us blind training. You can begin to use your senses other than sight by such simple exercises as practicing walking down your hallway without running into either wall, and noting the locations of doorways by noting how the ambient background sound changes.

If you are interested in understanding the health and martial use of acupuncture points, our organization is offering a free weekly zoom class. The next class is Tuesday, 25 AUG at 4pm PST (6pm CST, and 7pm EST).

A good article by the late Erle Montaigue. http://www.taijiworld.com/tai-chi-self-defense.html