Weekend Happenings

It was a busy weekend around here...Saturday, we held our first Jade Mountain Juniors Tournament, where our junior students competed in Hand Forms, Weapons, Sword Sparring, and Sparring. Then yesterday, we had a little "Welcome and Congratulations!" party for Larry Escher. It was more or less a surprise.

Saturday, we had all hands on deck as we set up chairs, readied our scorecards, and double-checked the competitor lists. A minor snag...the fantastic certificates had the wrong wording, and Larry hustled off to get that fixed. When he returned, the certificates were even better than before! We set up the judges table on one side of the mat and placed the four judges chairs in a square so that the kids would have plenty of room to perform. The school filled up quickly, and things got underway more or less on time.

All of us were really pleased with the way that every single student showed a significant improvement on their technique in every event. Wow! Many were very nervous about their first tournament, and most were really excited! Everyone did well, and we had a blast.

The sparring was quite thrilling...nothing like watching a couple of 8-year-olds kick the crap out of each other! As usual, the littlest students were the most aggressive, and even my nephew (who is the least combative person I've ever met in my life) bravely stood his ground against a larger opponent, and gave a good account of himself. He proudly showed off his scrapes and bruises later as badges of courage. In fact, I think they may the the first scrapes and bruises that he's ever had! Now, he's looking forward to sparring with a lot more enthusiasm, and we're all proud of him.

One of our policies at JMMA is that you actually do need to show that you know, and can perform, your skills. We think that it's important to challenge our students, and let them know when they are doing well, and also when they need to apply themselves and get serious about their training. There were some students who surprised themselves (and others) by winning their divisions, while others were astonished to find that they did not. Such reality checks are necessary, and help the students grow. Attitude is everything, and we hope that some of our slackers will pick up the pace now that they know what slacking gets them.

Overall, the tournament was a ton of fun, and we're already looking forward to the next one, which will most likely be in February. I must thank all of our folks who came in to help us pull this thing off...they were fantastic!!

Afterwards, we all went to Wild Wings (or Wild Things, as some of us call it) for dinner, and I informed Larry that he was to be at my house the next day at 11:30am. He asked why, and I told him "Because I said so." He started to protest, and I Dog-Whispered him into silence. You see, I'm no good at setting up a pretense. I had no idea what I could have said to get him to come to his own surprise party. So I didn't say anything...I just insisted that he show up with no explanation whatsoever. Amazingly, it worked.

So we all met at Amy's house on Sunday, and I managed to get Larry there as well. SURPRISE! I hope he enjoyed it. There were even cupcakes that said "CONGRATULATIONS SIFU LARRY JMMA" I ate 4 of them. Did I mention that Renee made her mushrooms? I had 4 of those, too. We all ate, had fun, and laughed a lot as we officially welcomed Larry to Jade Mountain, and congratulated him for being one of only 3 people in the United States to complete the first IKMF Civilian Instructor Course under the fabulous Eyal Yanilov.

So...that was the weekend. I'm finally about 90% over my cold/snot/cough thingy, so I'm getting back to training today. Christina's still feeling crappy, so I'm sending her to the the doctor today. And the Monkey is back at school. His birthday is this week...how in the world did 7 years go by this fast? Wow.

Have a great day, folks. Hug someone you love...and maybe pat them on the behind if you're in that kind of mood.