July?!? Yep, it's July. Wow. Gosh, we're only a few months away from Autumn already. Sweet.
TRAINING
So we had our first Heartland Arnis Players Alliance gathering, and it was fantastic. Just... FANTASTIC.
Learned lots of cool and interesting stuff (including some variants of a disarm I didn't know - very cool).
I wrote about it this week on the blog (see below) but I didn't talk about what I specifically taught. As I was a last-minute add-in, I actually had several things prepared to cover. Given what the other instructors did, I decided to end the session with something relatively simple.
I taught "X-Pattern" sinawali and used it as a tool to show the room all of the things you can be working on while you play ANY sinawali pattern (targeting, chambering, range, footwork, and hey, I didn't even mention strike mechanics...). I also showed them how you can take any sinawali pattern and "break it up" into fresh patterns (so you don't have to know 100 sinawali patterns, one can do a lot by itself).
By the end of my session, the smell of burning rattan filled the gym, and my work there was done.
BLOGGERY:
Monday: HAPA 1: Same Song, New Verse
Tuesday: THAT GUY: Seminar Edition
Wednesday: Brain Gooder Strikes Again
Thursday: Shenanigans: Banning the Martial Arts
You can't avoid the Stick Chick Blog on the Internet. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and MeWe, and on Pinterest, too.
OTHER FUN STUFF:
We've all been here, amirite?
So this bottle cap challenge thing has been making the rounds this week. Here's some of my favorites:
Jason Statham:
Donnie Yen:
Jhun Occidental:
And of course, Master Ken:
There's lots of good ones out there (check out Iain Abertnathy's on the blog's Facebook page). The one with the Mexican Mom and the chancla making the rounds is awesome.
FRIDAY THOUGHTS:
The US Women's Soccer team is in the FIFA finals on Sunday, so GO TEAM USA! Beat the Netherlands (gosh, it sounds so mean when I say that, but still)...
It was also Independence Day yesterday, and I have a four-day holiday weekend. We'll still be training at the Kansas City Presas Arnis Meetup on Sunday, though - if you're in the area, come on by!
Have fun and keep training!