Paths of Transformation

Here is this month’s newsletter.  Enjoy!

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On New Year’s Eve, we held our annual Shugyo, or ritual purification.  The training was tough, but everyone survived and we welcomed the New Year with sweaty smiles!  Happy New Year everyone!

On December 9, we held a belt test for Wee Warriors and on December 10, we held one for Pyon Moo Do Kids.  Both tests went well and all of the students who participated did a fantastic job.  Congratulations everyone!

This month I am experimenting with posting our monthly newsletter on this blog.  Let’s see how it works…

Click here to read this month’s newsletter

We held a belt test this Saturday.  Everyone performed well and showed great effort.  Congratulations, everyone!

We held our first movie night for our kids and families at the Dojang.  The movie of choice was Spooky Buddies.  Unfortunately, someone put me in charge of the projector and I got the settings wrong, so the picture was difficult to see.  In spite of my failure as a projectionist, the 60+ people who attended had fun.  On top of that, the concession stand set up by the TMAA Parents’ Advisory Committee raised $291.58 towards scholarships.  Thank you so much PAC members for all of your hard work to make this event such a success.

And I promise, next time I’ll get the settings right on the projector!

My teacher, Kwan Jang Nim Ken Corona, hosted Sulsa Camp in the mountains outside of Phoenix.  This is an event that comes around once every couple of years and, to use his words, it is like Christmas for martial artists.  It was two and a half days of solid training in weapons (knife, middle stick, rope and archery), self defense against weapons (knife, guns and baseball bats) and other fun stuff including stealth and camouflage.   It was a chance to learn from some amazing, highly skilled instructors (most of whom had Black Belts before I even started martial arts) and train with some great people.

This was my second Sulsa Camp and, like the first time, I came back to Austin exhausted but very excited about training.  This was the first time that I was able to bring students.  Nate and Richard Tingley joined me for the long drive to and from Arizona.  They both had a blast!

We had a group of White and Yellow Belt kids test this weekend.  Everyone did a fantastic job.  This was a sad occasion in one regard.  Jokyonim Mark Alan (pictured below helping Ridley with his pushups) has been a constant presence on our judging panels since we began holding classes here in South Austin.  In fact, he has only missed two tests over the past five years, and even then it was only due to illness.  Mr. Alan will be missed as he embarks on a new future in Bangkok.

We held a belt test for our littlest students a couple of weeks ago.  Here are some pictures from the test.  Great job,

guys!

We held a belt test on August 27th. Everyone did a fantastic job of putting their best effort forward during the test.  Several students made a special trip to watch Nate Tingley test for his Pum Dan—congratulations Nate!