SA Training Day
April 2012
On the 28th of April we held another training day here. Terry R. had to fly out on the Sunday so it needed to be held on a Saturday. This meant finding another venue and Tracy and Damien Ellis jumped in and offered to host it at West Beach. Although smaller it bought it closer to the Southern participants. With all this in mind I didn’t send out the usual emails and kept things low key. As expected many had to run their own clubs and others were working. Great, 40 was about all I could see getting in the hall. The day started of great, a few new names rang to make sure it would be ok to attend and asking for directions. Tracey had Ann there as the medico and support. So all was going well, until the people at the door just kept coming.
I had waivers for 70, drinks for 72 and room for 40! At the break I counted up about 60, but all the forms were filled, the drinks gone? It’s when I looked at the photo I realized there were over 80 on the day thanks to all our supporters. To begin with was Terry Riches teaching Sambo takedowns and Mick Murphy with nunchaku (we had to send them onto the basketball court to have some room) Next was Marc Miller demonstrating a Judo Kata and then taking his group through throws while Shawn Donaldson put people through their paces with Koryu Uchinadi drills.
The next session David Gartland in his usual dynamic fashion gave an insight and some drills of Ed Parkers Kenpo while Damien Ellis had people scrambling with reactionary drills to get the hearts pumping. I shared the time with him to give a few techniques for the closer fighting system. During the break Dante jumped on the mat for a play and once Tracy had returned with the pizza we all took time out to introduce people to each other including 2 spectators who I was happy to have there, Hans Van Gelder and Adrian Hitch. After the break we all did it again. I must thank Brett Harrison and Ant’z Veen’s Zanshin Freestyle guys for continuing to support our events. It was good to see some of Nino Pilla’s students enjoying themselves as was Ivan McWilliams from Qld. Another group was an awesome lot of big scary fellows. These guys loved slamming each other into the mats and joined in everything. They turned out to the nicest bunch of guys.
The clue to the strong “man handling” became obvious once it was explained they were Rugby players!
I had waivers for 70, drinks for 72 and room for 40! At the break I counted up about 60, but all the forms were filled, the drinks gone? It’s when I looked at the photo I realized there were over 80 on the day thanks to all our supporters. To begin with was Terry Riches teaching Sambo takedowns and Mick Murphy with nunchaku (we had to send them onto the basketball court to have some room) Next was Marc Miller demonstrating a Judo Kata and then taking his group through throws while Shawn Donaldson put people through their paces with Koryu Uchinadi drills.
The next session David Gartland in his usual dynamic fashion gave an insight and some drills of Ed Parkers Kenpo while Damien Ellis had people scrambling with reactionary drills to get the hearts pumping. I shared the time with him to give a few techniques for the closer fighting system. During the break Dante jumped on the mat for a play and once Tracy had returned with the pizza we all took time out to introduce people to each other including 2 spectators who I was happy to have there, Hans Van Gelder and Adrian Hitch. After the break we all did it again. I must thank Brett Harrison and Ant’z Veen’s Zanshin Freestyle guys for continuing to support our events. It was good to see some of Nino Pilla’s students enjoying themselves as was Ivan McWilliams from Qld. Another group was an awesome lot of big scary fellows. These guys loved slamming each other into the mats and joined in everything. They turned out to the nicest bunch of guys.
The clue to the strong “man handling” became obvious once it was explained they were Rugby players!
