Uechi-Ryu.com

Hey everyone. . . SummerFest is next weekend. Hope to see you all there.

Best,
George E. Mattson

The economy suks. I have a job in one city where I live most of my life, and my home is in another. I get home maybe once every other month for a few weeks. I have a great job, but the logistics are ridiculous. Travel has gotten expensive. It's too expensive (with way too many connections) to fly to New England from where I work, and it's an 8.5 hour drive to home where the flight is cheaper.

I will be at camp.

I have the plane ticket and a reservation for a rental car. I don't know yet where I'll be staying. I'll probably be buying a pillow and sleeping bag when I get up there, and disposing of them before I go home.

I will be at camp.

I feel like a college student road-tripping. Again.

No excuses, New Englanders and Canucks. Be there. Good times!

- Bill

Thanks for the SummerFest plug Bill. . .

No question, I appreciate everyone who joins us at SummerFest. Not only is the weekend a time to recharge our batteries, but a wonderful time to renew old friendships and a time to make new friends.
It is a shame that so many Uechi teachers elect to not attend and even tell their students not to go as well.

But those of us who do go, cherish the weekend and wouldn't miss it for anything.

See you next week Bill.

_________________
GEM
"Do or do not. there is no try!"

The question is WHY do they do that?

_________________
Van

Some questions are best left as rhetorical.

Good times!

- Bill

Susan and I arrived yesterday (Tuesday) and spent the day visiting friends and touring old "haunts "! Had a late lunch at one of our favorite restaurants before checking in to our hotel. Spent the morning answering e-mail. Would like to share one with you: Sensei Buzz Durkin wrote and volunteered to conduct a special class in dojo management during SummerFest! Besides being a really nice guy and superb martial art teacher and practitioner, Buzz is without question, one of the most successful dojo owners anywhere. What a great opportunity for SummerFest participants. If interested, I'll have a sign-up sheet at the registration area.
Seminar at. 7pm Friday
Party at 8pm

_________________
GEM
"Do or do not. there is no try!"

Good times at camp this year. No two of them are the same. While some of the material I teach may be unique to the camp, the students there are often different and my after-camp experiences are most definitely unique.

Congrats to the Canucks and to the Nebraskans for being the first clans to do the Fuzhou Suparinpei with staying power. George purposely turned part of the instruction of said form to Victor so he could get experience doing that and I could spend more time watching him in action. We had some interesting and entertaining discussions about "kata drift."

I had a great time working with a few people one-on-one on Sanseiryu. It never ceases to amaze me how much work we as an organization need on this form. Only a handful of people "get" how to use core energy in that form, and apply the principle of sequential summation of motion. (Or "mochi" as the Okinawans would describe it.) Fortunately I saw a few candidates on the Saturday night masters test who got it right. As long as we have a few, the knowledge will be out there for others to tap into.

Thanks to Sarah Colombe for asking me to work with her on Tsukenshitahaku no sai. It's a great form that I learned from an Okinawan Uechi master (I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember his name) at a 1984 Uechi camp. It's a very old, very long, and most awesome piece of choreography, and you won't find it out there on YouTube. But a handful of us in IUKF are keeping the tradition going.

Oh... and congratulations to Sarah for her upcoming nuptials.

Thanks to Tracy Capone for getting me off the street (hotels are ALWAYS booked...) and treating me like a prince in her most interesting home. Wow... I'm really impressed. It's a 200-year-old piece of semi-restored architecture that can be controlled from her smartphone anywhere in the world. This woman has talents!!

Always great to see Van, Rory, Buzzy, etc., etc., etc.

To the rest of you... you missed a great gathering.

- Bill