I apologize for not keeping up my blog. I have been writing regularly, but much of it was for the Pan American Goju-Ryu Newsletter and the other work has been essays I am compiling for a book, so very little has made it to the blog. There are very funny rules about what constitutes "unpublished" in the writing world, and blogs are published, so any essay I might like to post in this blog would be ineligible for a contest submittal in the future.
But there is other news to report.
My family and I moved from Austin to Johnson City almost two years ago. Over those two years I have driven to Austin (one hour each way) to continue teaching at the Karate Austin Dojo, until finally, due to increasing traffic and decreasing enrollment, that finally became untenable. So on July 1st, I left the Austin dojo in the hands of senior practitioners, with the understanding that I am Head Instructor of Seiwakai of Texas and as such, I will continue to be their dojo advisor and they are welcome to train with me at any time. That is now ongoing and they are operating as KarateATX (www.KarateATX.com)
Now finally, I will be opening a new dojo here in Johnson City, partnering with Core Fitness and at long last will be focusing again on both youth and adults! I am very happy about this as my youngest son is now old enough to begin training, so the time is right. I aim to continue to pass on to the youth of Blanco County the values of traditional Japanese/Okinawa Karate-do because I know first-hand how that helps kids hold steady through the turbulence and varied influences of being a kid. And it helps us adults to stay fighting fast and fit as well.
So the time for positive change is now! For me and hopefully for the families who will entrust me to be a great Sensei for their children as well as perhaps for themselves. We start on September 11th, which is fitting as 9/11 symbolizes the resilience of the US as well as the ability to shake off an attack and rise to the occasion -- which is what karate-do is all about. I look forward to growing in my teaching as well. I've been doing this for 45 years now and I'm getting the hang of it, I think. After all, Picasso said it took him 90 years to learn to paint like a child. I'm halfway there!
Ossu!
