Saturday, April 2 & Sunday, April 3, 2005
5th Annual Saratoga Martial Arts Festival info
The Saratoga Martial Arts Festival is held at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. It's a noncompetitive event, with seminars being taught by a variety of instructors, both local and from as far away as Connecticut, Rochester, and Virginia. The 4th SMAF was an absolute blast - I learned a lot and was very much looking forward to this year's sessions!
The sessions were longer this year, which was kind of a plus... unfortunately, that means fewer time slots with more instructors scheduled for each one, so it was even more difficult to get to anything approaching all the seminars I wanted to. Oh, well... next year...
SATURDAY, APRIL 2
Pentjak Silat with Sensei Jeff Melander: Morning started with a seminar on Pentjak Silat, which is a martial art from Java where all of the people are apparently extremely flexible and have very good knees. The instructor was Jeff Melandar, owner and chief instructor of Red Dragon Martial Arts in Ballston Spa. His energy and enthusiasm is incredible, and his skills are outstanding. Fortunately he was also very accomodating to those of us who are not Javanese, but my knees were still howling by the end. We did some self-defense and then learned part of a kata.
White Crane Techniques with Master Dominick Violante & Sensei Jeanene Ryan: Next up was a seminar on Shaolin Kenpo White Crane Techniques, with an instructor who REALLY impressed me last year. Master Violante (who prefers to be called Master Dom) is another instructor with great energy and enthusiasm, as well as great teaching skills. While his extensive knowledge of Kenpo and Aikido is clear, he also comes across as very open-minded and accepting of other ways of doing things. In particular, he gears his seminars toward teaching 6-8 techniques, in hopes that each person attending will find 3 or 4 that they can then incorporate into their own training. Last year wasn't a fluke - he was just as good this year, team-teaching with Sensei Ryan. The emphasis was on White Crane techniques, and seeing how techniques from other styles could be seen as crane techniques. We did self-defense applications of Kenpo with some aikido thrown in. Some fun stuff, but a lot of falling (aikido...) and no mats. Kind of reminded me of the old CGCC days.
Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu Iaijutsu with Ted Tanaka: After lunch came a pleasant surprise - one of the instructors had cancelled, and Ted Tanaka offered to teach a seminar on Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu Iaijutsu. Couldn't miss that! Ted's actions and attitudes make it very clear that he considers himself a student as well as an instructor, and he has a blast in everything he does. He gave us some great background on MJER, and then we went over some really neat boken drills and some of the bokken katachi I've been trying to pick up on my own via Hanshi Shimabukuro's book and videos. All in all a fantastic session with material that I hope to someday incorporate into my sword classes.
Baguazhang with Sifu Jiang Jian-ye: The last seminar of the day was on baguazhang self-defense techniques with Sifu Jiang, another instructor I was quite impressed with after his seminar last year. His wushu techniques are impressive, particularly since he makes such a big deal over how old he's getting (mid-50's, I believe.) His sense of humor was particularly welcome as I tried to get my inflexible body to approximate some of the moves his incredibly flexible body was doing! I've always been interested in baguazhang, so I really looked forward to this seminar. It involved LOTS of spinning around and getting very dizzy (me, not the attacker.) Good techniques, but I think it would be a long time before I could use them effectively, just because it is a totally different approach from what I'm used to. And we didn't even get into the internal aspects!
After the seminars, various instructors put on a 90 minute demo. Some cool techniques, and I'm very glad I wasn't uke during a lot of the self-defense segments - those guys were getting killed out there. All in all, a really good day and best of all - three more seminars tomorrow!
SUNDAY, APRIL 3
OK, if they ever decide to hold this on a weekend OTHER than when Daylight Savings Time begins, I will shed no tears... after a very long day of seminars getting up early Sunday to come back is difficult enough - losing an hour of sleep because of the clocks changing makes it an absolute killer. At least I'm not alone in that... most of the folks there looked pretty fried first thing in the morning.
Nihon Goshin Aikido with Sensei Earl Layumas: first seminar of the day, and we started out with warmups (not too different from what we do in classes, with the addition of some jumping jacks and running in place) and (uh oh) warm-up rolls and breakfalls (NOT my strength! fortunately, some of the other aikido folks offered helpful tips.) The instructor was Sensei Earl Layumas, who in some ways was very easy-going and laid-back but in other ways was fairly hardcore. Great teacher, really emphasized one of the underlying points of Nihon Goshin Aikido, which is "whatever gets the job done." Sometimes that's a strike, sometimes it's what we'd think of as an "aikido" move. We spent a lot of time working techniques that ended up with kotagaeshi takedowns and throws. So yes, I spent a lot of time getting put on the mat, and by the end my wrists and elbows felt a lot like my legs and knees did after the Silat seminar on Saturday. At least we had mats to fall on today! Some really good techniques, once I started to understand them. I think I might enjoy studying aikido under Sensei Layumas... too bad he's all the way down in Poughkeepsie!
Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu Japanese Swordsmanship with Alfred Blakely: Another sword seminar! I'm sorry to say I've misplaced my SMAF 2005 Program, so I have no info to offer on Alfred Blakely's background - but I was very impressed with both his knowledge and approach to teaching sword. He gave us some background, both historical and philosophical, and then we worked on bokken practice with partners. Again, some nice drills that I hope to someday incorporate into my sword class!
Hung Ga Kung Fu with Sifu Sharif Bey: The last seminar of the day, and another excellent instructor, this time from the Syracuse area. Sifu Bey tried to go over a tremendous amount of information regarding the Yee system of Hung Ga (Hung Gar) Kung Fu, covering history, principles, and basic exercises to develop energy, conditioning, and proper form. These folks train tough, though it sounds like they also try to train safe, because (as he puts it) when students are injured they can't train. We actually lucked out that he wanted to cover so much, because as a result he didn't make us sit in a horse stance for 5 full minutes (one of the requirements to be recognized as a white belt in his school.) All in all, a GREAT ending to the weekend (one that left me sorry to see it end, as fried as I was.)
So, to wrap up...
Overall a great weekend! Chatted with a few folks I met last year, and a few new folks, as well as some of the instructors... doing my best to generate a good impression of us for these folks despite the fact that my schmoozing abilities are pretty lame.)
Best of all, had great partners in each seminar (last year at one seminar I ended up paired up with one fellow who gave a strong impression that ignorant me was very much beneath him... he worked with me for a little bit and then looked for someone more on a par with his higher abilities. Admittedly, I was clueless as to the particular exercises we were doing, but his unspoken arrogance left a bed taste in my mouth... wouldn't it have been nice if he'd tried to help me understand the techniques better, like some of my other more-experienced partners? And then there was another seminar where my partner kept looking at the clock and didn't want to practice any techniques more than two or three times. I try to do them over and over again in hopes of remembering some tiny portion of what's being covered.) They were very much into the spirit of the event, both in terms of interest in learning and in keeping the contact to a very reasonable level.
Anyway, I got some great material this weekend - just hope I can remember some of it! I'll be tired and sore for a few days, but this was time well spent.
JMH
