Pictures from David Curtis Memorial Rockies Kick Seminar

As always the seminar with Grandmaster Kim was fantastic. We had three days of fun and learning with Tae Kwon Do in a great outdoor environment. We also had two students test to green and high green belt level as well as two students test to 2nd degree black Belt!

Some of the best pictures I love are of 1st Degree Black Belt Ms. Berner with her son on her back as a papoose! We were a bit worried at first (as was she) -- but she was very careful and would've sat down if it didn't work. It turns out the little one loved it when she did things like a spin-kick with a turn in it. He would just out and out giggle each time she did that! Ahhhh!

Another thing that we did each day was to remember 3rd Degree Black Belt Mr. David Curtis for whom the seminar was held in honor. We had a moment of silence for him, on Saturday morning I read my experience of advancing him to 3rd Dan shortly before he passed away. We also had a poster with pictures of David and space for people to put comments and memories of him. And on Sunday morning we had a slide show before we started training with pictures of David doing one of the things he loved best -- the martial arts. The link to David's memory page is below.

I've organized these photo's by theme and similar events rather than a strict time-line. We missed getting photo's on Sunday, so these photo's are from both Friday night and Saturday events.

These pictures are courtesy of Sandy Priest.

Note: These are all thumbnails of the pictures. If you click on a picture you can pull up a full size image of the picture (other than the random picture at the top).

Line-up, Bow, Stretching and ready stance -- Joon Bee!

Class bows to Grandmaster Kim, we work together on stretching. Look at Ms. Berner with her son on her back! This is great -- talk about family togetherness! Then everyone gets into ready stance -- Joon Bee!

Basics

We of course worked on basics each day, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Here we see everyone working together on doing similar drills. We had white belts learning about sang-soo (twin fist attack) and reverse punching. Notice, Grandmaster Kim leading white belts in some of these drills. We also have a nice shot of a young yellow belt showing excellent focus and determination!

Foot in the face!

I love this picture! Side kick in your face! :-)

Listening to Grandmaster Kim and the instructors

Students do a good job of listening to Grandmaster Kim and the other instructors. I see good focus and concentration here -- this is great. This shows patience, courtesy and teachability -- all good attributes of a martial artist!

On break

Here's some folks just messing around, some stretching and talking. I love the one with junior black belt Mr. Ian helping a white-yellow belt tie his belt! Good job to both with working together, showing courtesy and respect as well as being kind to each other.

Highlighting some of the Women that came

Quite often men and boys natuarlly gravitate to martial arts study -- but in a real sense women and girls -- need it more. Women are unfortunately way too often attacked by men and can use knowledge of self-defense to help them get out. To encourage the women and girls to network and support each other we decided to have a time when we had groups separated by gender.

So a new thing we did this year for lunch was in effort to encourage all of the women martial artists by getting them together to talk at lunchtime. So we had a "Girl-Power" lunch where the women and girls got together and got to discuss the martial arts and anything else they wanted to -- without men or boys around. From all the smiles, talking and laughter I heard from their table -- I think it was a success!

Here we see various pictures highlighting some of the women and girls that came to the event. You see several of 1st Degree Black Belt Ms. Martinez as well as a couple of purple belt girls. As you can see there are many other pictures that feature women and girls elsewhere.

Forms

Everyone working on their forms. Check out the shot of Ms. Berner working on her forms with a "cheat-sheet" with her son on her back! We did some forms work on each day but especially concentrated on forms on Saturday morning.

Family

Some nice shots of Tae Kwon Do families! Love those smiles!

Sparring

Here we see the sparring lines bow to each other and a white belt and Ms. Berner work on three-step sparring. And purple and black belts sparring.

Testing

We had two students test to green belt -- one to low green and one to high green. Here we see the yellow belt doing Tae Guk Sam Dan and we see them doing 1-step and free sparring. Finally we see Mr. Kevin executing a flying side kick during sparring for his 2nd Degree Black Belt test -- this picture is a link to the page for the 2nd Degree black belt testing.

Pictures of 2nd Degree Testing for Mr. Bradford and Mr. Kevin

Breaking

On Saturday afternoon after testing we let everyone spread out and take a turn at whacking at their own stack of boards! Check out Mr. Voight's stack of five boards with an elbow!

Listen to martial arts story

On Saturday afternoon we listened to Master Kluzek read a story about a martial artist named Yim WingChung. The story is a great one about overcoming bullies with skill and cunning, as well as the meaning of love and family devotion.

Another thing we did was to give out prizes for each session, for the kid that did an excellent job during that session. Mr. Kevin is shown here getting one of those -- a martial arts poster. We also have a yellow belt that got a T-shirt, and a purple belt who (like everyone else) got a Certificate for participating in the seminar.

On Saturday night we also had a session on stretching and meditation where we read a few stories from the martial arts as well.

Sandy receives Mr. David Curtis's Official 3rd Degree Black Belt Certificate

Here Sandy (Mr. David Curtis's wife) receives his official 3rd Degree black belt certificate. This was emotional for her and everyone as we advanced Mr. Curtis to 3rd Dan just before he passed away in January 2008, and this was the first time the official certificate for David came out. See below where Grandmaster Kim very gently and tenderly passes the certificate to Sandy. At the bottom we have a picture of Mr. Curtis and a link to the memories of him -- including a full accounting of his advancement to 3rd Dan.

Memories of 3rd Degree Black Belt Mr. David Curtis



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