the Way of the Turtle

7th ANNUAL SARATOGA MARTIAL ARTS FESTIVAL
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Sunday, April 1, 2007

SMAF info

Another year of the Saratoga Martial Arts Festival has come and gone, with an entire weekend devoted to learning and training in martial arts. This was my 4th time at SMAF, and the 7th year it's been held. This year was different and unusual in that Master Hillicoss and Miss Moller both attended as well, and Master Hillicoss presented a 2 hour seminar on the tonfa on Sunday.

As usual, my focus was on learning or reinforcing principles, possibly picking up a new technique or two, gaining a little exposure to other styles of martial arts... and having fun while doing so.

SATURDAY, MARCH 31

The festival was supposed to kick off with a traditional lion dance being presented by Sifu Sharif Bey and his students. As we found out later, technical difficulties prevented that happening, and shortly after arriving at the Skidmore College gym we jumped into the first seminars of the weekend.

Zenbu Ryu Jujutsu with Sensei Lou Zuccaro - the first session I did on Saturday was another jujutsu class, this one with Sensei Lou Zuccaro. Sensei Zuccaro teaches at the Zenbu Ryu Jujutsu Dojo in Staten Island and founded Zenbu Ryu in 1998, after studying a variety of martial arts for 30+ years, with his primary training in Professor Florendo Visitacion's Vee Jitsu and Sensei Joseph Murgola's modern form of Yoshin Ryu Jujutsu. I was particularly interested to learn that Sensei Zuccaro is Gary Lewis's instructor (Sensei Lewis taught the jujutsu seminar that I took last year at SMAF.) After a quick warm up we jumped into close to 90 minutes of wrist locks, throws, and takedowns, with a few strikes sprinkled in for good measure. Sensei Zuccaro was a lot of fun and despite getting repeatedly slammed into the mat, I really enjoyed his class. I was also pleased to see Sensei Lewis who arrived toward the end of the session and was flattered that he actually remembered me from last year.

Sensei Lou Zuccaro

Liu Seong Combat Arts with Sifu Dan Donzella - from jujutsu to a Chinese/Indonesian style. Sifu Dan Donzella teaches a combination of Chinese Chuan Fa (Kung Fu) and Indonesian Tjimande (essentially a form of kuntao) as well as filipino arnis. His seminar focused on techniques that can allow a smaller person to successfully defend against a larger attacker, including slapping techniques and pokes/jabs to sensitive areas of the body - all designed to get an attacker to react in ways that would disrupt their balance and allow one to either finish them off or retreat. While some of the techniques were counter-intuitive to me (with years of training in a primarily closed-fist striking art) they were very effective and definitely gave me some ideas of things to add to my own arsenal. I was also impressed by Sifu Donzella's very down-to-earth aproach and his interest and concern for his students (when I went over later to purchase two of his DVDs, he remembered that I'd mentioned having knee injuries and discussed them briefly with me.) I would definitely take another of his seminars!

Sifu Dan Donzella

Defensive Positioning and Timing Drills with Dr. David Wink - I was somewhat familiar with Dr. Wink from previous years at SMAF, although I'd never taken a class with him. Mainly I'd seen him doing demonstrations, often as one of the Crazy Guys with Sticks who would practice full contact stick fighting with minimal protection. He comes from a very eclectic martial arts background: TKD, Wing Chun, boxing, kickboxing, silat, and kali, among other things, though much of what I've seen him do seems to be based on filipino and Indonesian arts. He worked with us on drills to develop positioning and timing in defending against a stick or knife, based off the triangle principle (always moving at an angle to the attacker rather than straight in or straight back.) Once we'd worked on that for a bit, we added jamming the attack by either jamming the elbow from the outside or the forearm from the inside, and then added a rather nifty stick disarm. It's quite possible this would be very basic material for someone with a strong filipino/Indonesian background, but I found it both interesting and challenging.

Dr. David Wink

Low Kicking and Sweeping Techniques with Shihan Patrick Hussey - I actually started this session in Sifu Mark Cardona's class on concepts of monkey kung fu, but it became evident very quickly that my knees were not going to allow me to do many of the movements he was demonstrating, so I hustled over to Shihan Hussey's class on low kicks and sweeps. (I'd actually been interested in taking Shihan Hussey's class anyway, but decided to give my legs and knees a break... guess I was meant to be there after all!) Shihan Hussey was glad to have additional students and we jumped right into using low kicks to the outer thigh to disrupt our partner's balance, then following through with a variety of sweeps and strikes. Shihan Hussey struck me as an excellent teacher, very enthusiastic and very interested in his students. His background in traditional Japanese karate (kyukoshinkai, seido, and kokorokan) is very clear, and I am definitely interested in learning more about his style, Tenkara Karate, which apparently focuses not only on technique but also in developing strong moral character in its students.

Shihan Patrick Hussey

Aikijujutsu with Sensei Dave Lamond - for the last seminar of the day we had a variety of choices, one of which was originally going to be taught by the late Sensei Jim Tirey. With Sensei Tirey's passing a little over a week ago, it was unclear exactly what would happen with his seminar... but we were very fortunate to have his instructor in Icho Yama Ryu and Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu Kodokai, Sensei Dave Lamond, as well as one of Sensei Lamond's students and Sensei Tirey's senior student (unfortunately, I didn't get their names.) Sensei Lamond is an retired NYC police officer who first began studying under Antonio Pereira, founder of Miyama Ryu Jujitsu. He went on to study under Miguel Ibarra and Roy Goldberg, two of the founders (along with Bernie Lau) of Icho Yama Ryu and Sensei Kiyama Hayawo in the secret art of Daito Ryu Kodokai. Sensei Lamond started with a brief demonstration of Daito Ryu techniques and looked to be, as they say, putting a real hurtin' on his ukes. From there we went on to practice a number of handgun disarms - a major difference between these techniques and the ones we practice in AMAI was an emphasis on keeping the gun close to your body to maintain leverage and try to avoid a strength-against-strength tug-of-war. For the last portion of the seminar, we experienced a bit of what the late Sensei Tirey called "faschia fighting", which uses the idea of maintaining light contact and taking a person down by stretching the skin to its elastic limit. A very subtle effect and not one that I was able to get to work for me, though I had it done to me effectively. Overall, an interesting seminar with a good deal of practical technique and information.

Sensei Dave Lamond

After the last seminar wrapped up, we found out that the lion dance was delayed from the morning because of technical problems with Syracuse Kung Fu's lion. In a show of incredible friendship and generosity, one of the local instructors, Sifu Steven Nacua, allowed them to use his school's lion (allowing another school's students under your lion is something which is almost never done - the lion represents the pride and soul of your school) AND we learned that one of the new instructors, Sifu Allen Wong, would be joining the Syracuse Kung Fu students under the lion. Thus the evening demo kicked off not only with a lion dance, but with a friendship dance showcasing the spirit of sharing and courtesy that characterizes the Saratoga Martial Arts Festival. Ann and I stayed to watch the lion dance, which was lots of fun, and the first demo, a short show put on by Adirondack Tae Kwon Do's students. Then we headed back to Albany, with a stop along the way for some much-needed dinner.

SUNDAY, APRIL 1

Three Arts Rotation: Defense Against a Punch -
Jeet Kune Do - Mr. George Ilyadis

Mr. George Ilyadis

Modern Jujitsu - Sensei John Borter