Aikido Demo at "Celebration of the Arts"

Well, this weekend was a great one! I'm still sore from Thursday's class, but this past Saturday, 5 of us showed up at the local "Celebration of the Arts" in downtown Midland, TX to put on a demonstration.

Sensei John Riggs, Mike Cervantes, Johnny Couch, Me and Benjamin (new student) were all there and put on a pretty good show. Sensei did a number of various techniques, lots of kokyu, shiho, katame waza of course. Later, he did some weapons take-aways and finished off with some Jo work.

I got lots of pictures (thanks to my lovely wife Leslie, "Thanks Darlin'!") and I'll be submitting a bunch of the photos to be posted here on the Aiki-gallery.

Thanks to Lan Powers, our Aiki brother-in-arms. Lan had a very important event that kept him away, but allowed us to use his mats for the demonstration which was VERY important! Thanks, Lan Man!!

Thanks to Sensei Randy Shoupe for coming up from San Angelo to support us. He and his lovely wife have become great friends of us in Midland, and Randy Sensei will be traveling to Houston with Riggs Sensei to visit Kato Shihan and attend the seminar the first weekend of June.

Thanks also goes out to Donna Cervantes for wrangling kiddos while her husband was off playing... and for her manning the camera, allowing us to get the demonstration on video.

Special Thanks goes out to my wife, Leslie. The day before the demo, I went to the store and bought a 6'x9' canvas, paint and brushes and stayed up till 2:30am painting the kanji on the future "banner." Then I woke Leslie and she not only painted in the stenceled letters of "Aikido of Midland," but she also created stencels and painted the phone number as well... stayed up till 8:30am to get it done... and it looks GREAT! Leslie kicked total butt and delighted Sensei and many others with our combined work (though she deserves more credit than me)

All in all, it was a good deal and we had fun. Ben is barely 3 months into Aikido and for him to show up and help us out says a lot about his heart and dedication. He is an outstanding student and I'm looking forward to see him grow in Aikido.

Take care and keep an eye out for the photos soon!

*bump and update*

Downloaded the photo's this morning (5/24/05). They usually take a couple days to get posted, but they're in. I submitted about 10 or so, though depending on how it turns out, I may either replace a few or just add in more. Tried to submit a variety of different ones.

Anyways... photos are forthcoming.

John Boswell wrote: Thanks to Sensei Randy Shoupe for coming up from San Angelo to support us. He and his lovely wife have become great friends of us in Midland, and Randy Sensei will be traveling to Houston with Riggs Sensei to visit Kato Shihan and attend the seminar the first weekend of June.

Interesting, I will be there Saturday afternoon of the seminar.

Hi Sensei,

I've been reading Jorge's announcements, keeping everyone appraised of how things are going in Houston. Last minute plans are preventing me from attending the Houston Seminar, which is a shame because I've always wanted to meet you and others in the Houston area..

I do hope you enjoy meeting the West Texas gang! A lot of good guys are headed your way. Looking forward to getting my hands on some video of the seminar when everyone gets back.

Have fun and don't hurt anybody! j/k