by Crystal.Sands.McKinney/Be » Thu May 22, 2008 1:59 pm
Well, Bill and Rich have been teaching Uechi at American family for over 15 years. Amercian Family will be relocating to a newer edition of the company in about two weeks. Two make a long story short after Bill teaching and devoting his time of 15 years with this company they requested a written proposal. Red flags started popping up in my head trying to figure why all of a sudden there was questioning of the material being represented from with in the class. FWIW Bill put a lot of hard work and detail covering every thing as to why we do what we do and explained about the history, etc. Basically trying to let them know this was not at all an aerobic class.
The management might I add is not trustworthy and if you need an answer you basically have to jump all the way up the chain of commands to the owner of the company to get any kind of answering. After Bill put his proposal together which took weeks of properly disecting everything to explain in lamens terms to American Family, he then made 5 books for each manager and one for file. This was 13 pages long and turned out perfect in my eyes. All the Assistant GM did was glance at it and after I asked her what she thought about after she told me she glanced at it she shrugged her shoulders and said "we are interviewing two other groups of arts". I laughed and said' "really what are they?" Ofcourse they are aerobic styles of kickboxing, Taquando (SP)?, and Tibo. Forgive my spelling , my toddler tries to type with me.
Management has this crappy my stuff dont stink attitude about everything, unless you fly in their flock and become their puppet.
I told Bill wherever our class goes I am going to be there reguardless. I have found a group of people that I consider all my family old and new and it is breaking my heart to think that we may loose some of them due to this circumstance. Bill has been teaching for 30 years and he knows what he is doing. Rich and Vicki are black belts, they are also excellent teachers, as well as the brown belts and so forth. My point being.... We are a strong pack and no one understands it better than those who have had a taste of martial arts in a traditional non aerobic setting.
My dream....Is to get a DoJo running. Bill has been non-profit for years because he has such a big heart to get people to not only learn a traditional art but they learn more about themselves and they gain so much out of it on the side.
We are in the process now all of us, are looking for a new home to keep this non-profit. Children really benefit in so many fantastic ways when learning Martial Arts, the discipline, the self confidense, the flexibilty, the list goes on and on. I made a promise that I would teach them though I am just a little White belt in Uechi, I have other belts in other Arts. Children basically teach the adult, we adults just have to not let the children know the power they have.
Life is a series of quests - become your own hero.