I can’t believe it’s been 12 years (as of Friday, Dec. 10) that my teacher, Hanshi Ridgely Abele, passed away. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him, and his teachings live on in all his students. There was no one quite like him – in or out of the […]

We added two new students this week as we continue to build our school. Both just moved to the area from NYC and are welcome additions, having trained in other styles before coming our way. During their first day of class on Saturday, we worked on some basics – front kick, high block, basic punches,

Saturday was a light day of training because we were adding a new makiwara (photo attached), thanks in large part to one of our nidans, Brett, and his running mate, Mickey, along with another nidan, John. It not only looks good but has two different tensions for striking – and one of our other guys

Along with some solid training – we also added another new student today – we have put up our Shuri-ryu Pine Tree along with photos of Soke Robert A. Trias, O’Sensei Robert Bowles, Hanshi John Pachivas & Hanshi Ridgely Abele. It really looks good.

This past week was a solid working week for our school. We had classes Monday and Wednesday afternoon/evening, working on kata and our “short forms” – ippons, kihons & taezus. On Friday met with one of our nidans and brown belts for a 2 1/2-hour workout, working through 1-20 ippons and kihons. And then Saturday

Sorry there was no post last weekend. I was out of town last week at a three-day seminar – the annual Shuri-te Bujitsu-kai Martial Arts International Conference, which was again in Fort Mill. As always, it was a great event, with many classes for students (and aren’t we all students?) of all ranks and interests.

Sorry, didn’t post last week. Was busy at my job. But, as we did last weekend – not to mention Monday and Wednesday nights, our group was hard at work Saturday. We spent a couple hours (after stretching, etc.) working on Kihons 1-13. There was plenty of sweat as we worked through the basic interpretation

We greeted some of the “old guard” back Saturday for training – Brett Netherton and Mickey Thomas (who had worked out a few weeks back with us as well) have joined us full time. They were long-time students of Hanshi Abele and are now back working with us. We had a good, two-hour sweat-stained workout

Added to our work last week with the Bo, including working through not only Bo theory with Tai Kyoku but Wansu Kata, which is much more fun – and challenging – to do with the Bo. After a couple hours, we left the floor to our GAT-Arnis brothers.

Had good workout this morning with Bo. We went through Bo theory as designed by Grand Master Robert A. Trias. We also worked on a basic 6-step Bo defense and attack series.