Friendships renewed

Had a pleasant surprise this week, a phone call from Bill Gill in Canada? He told me that he has finally finished his new jiu jitsu manual and I should receive it the end of the month. I am really happy as in December 2004 I renewed my friendship with George Fitzgerald in London, he was hosting a weekend seminar of Larry Hartsell of the Jeet Kune Do grappling division, George is now Larry Hartsell's representative in the London area. George e mailed me about the seminar and as I had a weekend off for once; wearing have seminar will travel hat I went down to the Big Smoke.

Having trained a couple of times with Sifu Hartsell in Edinburgh at seminars hosted by Rick Young some fifteen years ago I was surprised how pleasant the people on the seminar in London were, Sifu Hartsell was as always a real Southern Gentleman but my experience of the J.K.D. people in Scotland is that they are stand offish, only want to know you if you have some martial knowledge they want to learn and basically ignore you or are on a seminar with them, you really have the impression that you are there just to pay for the hall and if they could they would prefer if you were not there. The people on the London seminar were a revelation, they were pleasant, sociable and went out of there way to make you feel welcome, if this was how I was treated years ago I might still go to J.K.D. seminars in Scotland.

The reason I went down to London was to renew my friendship with George Fitzgerald, we were graded to shodan by Bill Gill in his style of jiu jitsu Misu Ryu (Water Style) a unique system formulated by Bill for the police, Bill is a retired Canadian Provincial Policeman and so brings his thirty years experience of dealing with criminal arrests to the jiu jitsu field. George is my sempei, senior in the Misu Ryu system and I was wondering if Bill had been in touch with him, he had not but George told me he intended to renew contact with Bill in the new year.

One of my resolutions this year is to renew friendships to this end I have resolved to train in October with Tim Thomas when he is teaching goshin jitsu kata, modern self defence kata of judo, this kata is a favourite of mine and I look forward to seeing his interpretation of the kata, for although the basic structure of the kata cannot change everyone has subtle variations on the techniques. Another person I hope to meet again is the Bolton Iron Man Trevor Roberts, who is hosting a jiu jitsu camp at St. Mary's Bay. I met Trevor on various jiu jitsu seminars in the early 1990's, he was teaching and I was going down to learn with Kirby Watson as I was learning aiki jiu jitsu from him. In 1994 I trained for a week with Trevor in jiu jitsu, there I learned part of his ground work kata, I resolve to learn the remaining six moves of the kata after the crucifix position.

This year I intend to take part in as many seminars as time and finances permit to learn new things in the martial arts and make me a more rounded martial artist, from defendo to shiatsu to increase my skill base.