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Fall 2008

This has been a fairly interesting year to date. Not too much happened in January, but, the first weekend of February I traveled to London. Paul Bowman sponsored me for a seminar in Maidstone at Master Dave Martin’s Dojo. I taught Nihanchi 2 Breakdowns and when I took a break for Grandmaster Bowman to teach he carried on with the same theme. The seminar was filmed before approximately 70 participants and should be available in the near future.

On March 15th, I sponsored my annual Spring seminar for Professor George Dillman here in Indianapolis. We had a really great turnout with some cool KO’s at the end. I will get those KO’s up on this site very soon.

Professor Leon Jay came to Indianapolis at the end of March and taught a seminar in Bloomington, Indiana with Grandmaster David Rhoads and myself teaching as well. We do this gig every year and it seems to be the best kept secret of Small Circle Jujitsu. The following day we held a ranking exam at my dojo where several students moved up in the system. On this trip Professor Jay unveiled three new DVDs including one from his father’s 90th Birthday Seminar the year before.

On Wednesday April 2nd we went to Master Deborah Grimaldi’s school Tiger Martial Arts in Chesterton, Indiana near Chicago where Professor Jay taught another great seminar. Professor Jay is taking Small Circle Jujitsu to new levels of play by involving more energy manipulation and awesome trapping techniques.

When I took Professor Jay to the airport here in Indianapolis on April 10th I also left for Paris to meet Grandmaster Jean Paul Bindel. GM Bindel hosted me for a great tour of Europe that lasted 18 days and included 10 seminars.

The first two seminars were in Brussels, Belgium at Master Jean Lefeavor’s dojo on Saturday and Sunday April 12 & 13. Each day I taught five hours with a lunch break in the middle. Master Michel-Henri Arden an 8th Dan and head of all Shotokan grading in Belgium was present both days among the 50 or so participants.

We returned to Paris where I taught a four hour seminar on Tuesday evening at a dojo in Romainville. While in Paris GM Bindel and I stayed at his friend’s home, Jacques and Josiane Moal. They were gracious hosts and made me feel at home.

Early Thursday morning we left for Southern Germany. We traveled through Belfort, France for a brief visit with GM Bindel’s daughter. Before leaving Belfort we went to see “The Lion of Belfort”, a huge sculpture of a male African lion sculpted by A. Bartoli who also sculpted the Statue of Liberty.

On Friday night we had a seminar in Totdnau, Germany hosted by Gebhard Lemmel at his beautiful dojo. There were about 50 French, German and Swiss participants. I filmed this seminar and the following two German seminars in Hanover and Berlin.

We took a train to Hanover Saturday morning and arrived in time to get to the seminar site and start teaching. I taught a five hour seminar for about 55 attendees including some who had never seen pressure point concepts. They were blown away! Master Gaby Roloff was there with some of her students from Hamberg and I asked her to demonstrate some TapiTapi from Modern Arnis.

Early the following morning we got on a train again and traveled to Berlin. Again we just got there in time to get to the seminar site and start teaching. We had a nice turnout there as well and the event was held at the oldest known dojo in Europe. A guy at this seminar filmed it for himself and posted an edited clip on “youtube”. I now have that at the beginning of this page.

The next morning we flew to Basel and got back into a car and drove all day to Jean Paul’s home in Theza near Perpignan, France. We stayed at GM Bindel’s home for the remainder of the tour and traveled to the remaining seminars sites one at a time.

We had a really huge turnout in Toulouse and also in Montpeilier. I filmed those seminars too. The caliber of student at those seminars was much higher because of GM Bindel’s teachings all over France.

We held a small seminar in Ordiza ,Spain for a group that had formerly been training under another system and needed to learn how to perform Kyusho properly. This was a private seminar, but was very rewarding for me to teach.

On Sunday the 20th I taught my last seminar of the tour in Elne, France where I teach at GM Bindel’s Summer Camp every August. We did a higher level class for this group because they were all GM Bindel’s students.

All of the seminars were well attended and fun to teach. Leila and Blondina, two sisters who are students of GM Bindel traveled to all of the seminars with us and helped me by taking pictures and filming most of the sessions. I flew home from Paris after taking a train to the airport on the 22nd. It was an awesome opportunity for me to teach on this tour and I owe GM Bindel a debt of gratitude for making it happen.

The first weekend in May I traveled to Hamberg, Germany to teach at a weekend Modern Arnis camp hosted by Gaby Roloff. GM Roloff was an excellent host and went out of her way to show me her city and a great time. GM Roloff is incorporating Kyusho and Tuite into how she teaches Modern Arnis.

The following weekend I was hosted for a seminar in Cromwell, Connecticut by GM Brian Zwalinski featuring myself along with instruction by GM Zwalinski and GM Ed Melaugh. We all taught a one day seminar on Modern Arnis, Small Circle Jujitsu and Ryukyu Kempo. GM Zwalinski met me at Arnis Fest last fall hosted by GM Ken Smith and has hopes of also incorporating Kyusho and Tuite concepts into his program.

Last weekend I hosted my Tenth Annual George Dillman Summer Camp here in Indianapolis. It was one of the best camps ever anywhere. We had over 100 participants on Saturday, over 75 Friday night and about 60 or so on Sunday. The camp instructors were Prof. George Dillman, GM Chris Thomas, GM Ed Lake, GM Matt Brown, GM Ken Smith, GM David Rhodes, GM Glen Ristine, GM Steve Cooper, GM David Wilson, M. Ruben West, M. Shane Lear, M. Brit Potter M. Dave Deich and M. Larry Bennett.

After lunch on Saturday I started a session breaking down Kata Kusanku. This session went on for over two hours including breakdowns from myself, GM Ed Lake, and all of the masters present including Professor George Dillman. He loves that kata and will be on the DVD. It was recorded by Josh Moree using three High Definition cameras. On Saturday night we had our Banquet featuring music by the Bella Blue Band who played to a packed dance floor until Midnight!

I have been informed that Josh Moree has finished the Kusanku DVD and it will be available soon!

I am leaving for Perpignan, France again on July 31st and will teach at GM Jean Paul Bindel’s annual summer camp. This is my fifth year teaching at this camp and I would encourage anyone that wants to see the South of France to come. GM Bindel offers this camp every year and anyone who loves martial arts should go.

I will be posting pictures from events this year when I get more time to do so.

Will Higginbotham