It’s been a fairly slow summer this year except for a nice trip to Chicago back in June to Grandmaster Leslaw Samitowski’s dojo and, of course, the August George Dillman camp here in Indy.
We had a good turnout at the Chicago seminar and then on Saturday Yaga and Leslaw took us around town to see some Frank Lloyd Wright homes and then downtown to the Annual Chicago Blues Festival. We really enjoyed all the sights and sounds of Chicago.
This year’s Indy Camp for Dillman Karate International was awesome as usual, but, for the first time since the beginning of these camps, was held the first weekend in August. Back 15 years ago when we started, I decided to move the camp weekend, the second year, back into July because of the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race. Then after a few short years the race was moved to the third weekend in July, so I moved my camp back to the first weekend in July. I felt that the 4th of July was important enough to many families that this year we moved it back to the first weekend in August again.
The August date worked pretty well except that changing the date mid-year probably affected some who needed the advanced notice to change vacation or travel timelines. So next year the camp is again August 1, 2 & 3.
After the camp was over we enjoyed visiting with Jesse & Maybel Leon and George & Susie Dillman. George and Susie then traveled over to Richmond, Indiana where they discovered the Jazz and Blues roots history of that area. Sensei was telling me all about what they had found and I said, “Are you sure you’re still in Indiana?” So, Mary and I went over on Sunday to see some of the history for ourselves. George and Susie were our tour guides.
Next week Mary and I will be traveling to Germany to do a weekend camp with Gaby Rolloff in Hamburg. We are staying for a week and I will be teaching on Monday and Tuesday for some of Gaby and Sandy’s classes as well as doing some private sessions.
We arrive back in Indiana on Wednesday and then on Friday morning I leave for Yuma, Arizona where I will teach Friday and Saturday for Nathan Bratcher.
The first weekend in October I am doing a seminar Friday and Saturday for Mike Scarbrough in Columbus, Ohio. Mike & his wife Stephanie are great hosts.
The second week of the month of October is the Fall Deer Lake Camp at the Muhammad Ali Training Camp that Prof. Dillman owns. This is always a fantastic place to train and I would encourage anyone who loves both Martial Arts and Ali to come and take part. There is always a tremendous group of Martial Artists from all over the world who show up at this camp.
The third weekend of October we are back home hosting the Fall Small Circle Jujitsu Camp featuring Prof. Leon Jay, Professor David Castoldi and many other Small Circle Black Belts from all over the US and Europe. This camp will be held at John and Varlarie Paul’s Indiana Martial Arts Dojo in Moorsville just a few minutes South of the Indianapolis International Airport. The Paul’s have a really nice dojo with multiple training floors that they built a few short years ago.
So, the next couple of months are fairly busy for us. I’ll let you know soon what’s in store for November. We look forward to seeing many of our friends out on the road!