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What's New?
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 |
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